Navigating the Gap
Notes
Transcript
We have spent the last few weeks talking about this journey of grace. The journey that we go on with God that is only possible by his free gift of grace. It starts with “come and see,” turns to a decision to the question of “follow me,” and then becomes “go and do.”
Two weeks, we talked about God’s prevenient grace, or the grace that goes before. We talked about how God is pursuing us and how he wants to restore us in relationship to himself, even before we might realize that he is.
Last week, we looked at two different men who had an encounter with Jesus - the blind beggar and Zacchaeus the chief tax collector. We also heard a couple of stories about how God worked in different people’s lives. While we all have a different story, a different background, and a different experience, we all have the same need - that of a Savior - that which results in a personal relationship with that Savior, Jesus Christ, through his saving grace alone.
This morning, we are going to be in the book of Acts. Turn with me to Acts 1.
6 Then they gathered around him and asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”
7 He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority.
8 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.”
9 After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.
10 They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them.
11 “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.”
12 Then the apostles returned to Jerusalem from the hill called the Mount of Olives, a Sabbath day’s walk from the city.
13 When they arrived, they went upstairs to the room where they were staying. Those present were Peter, John, James and Andrew; Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew; James son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James.
14 They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers.
17 “ ‘In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.
The disciples just watch Jesus ascend into heaven. They went back to Jerusalem to wait, just as Jesus had instructed them. They replaced Judas. But did you catch verse 8? It’s one of my favorite verses in all of Scripture.
8 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.”
Can you imagine what it must have been like waiting in that room for this promised Holy Spirit that Jesus had promised would come? I can imagine feelings of anticipation, anxiety with not knowing what or how it would come, and maybe even a bit of fear. However, we see in verse 14 that they all joined constantly together in prayer. They were in prayerful anticipation for the promised Holy Spirit. What a way to live!
Then just after the moment the Spirit comes, we see Peter get up to speak. Think about the holy courage and faith he had to have had to get up to speak in that awesome moment. There had to be confusion, excitement, and many other emotions running high. The people were seeing the power of God at work right there in front of them! The promised Holy Spirit had just shown up in a mighty and powerful way. But if I had been there, I can imagine a thought in the back of my mind, maybe even overshadowing what was happening. I imagine I might have a thought something like this. “Wait a minute. Isn’t this the same guy who, just two months ago, announced, ‘I’m going fishing’?”
If we go back to John 21, we see Peter have this reaction. They had just witnessed the crucifixion, the resurrection, and experienced many different things such as Peter’s own denial of Jesus. But after the excitement of the resurrection, we see Peter announce. “I’m going fishing.”
This wasn’t a nice trip with some buddies for the weekend. Peter returning to fishing was the moment Peter hit the default button. Fishing was Peter’s default. It is what he knew, what he was raised doing, it was his comfort zone. There is a similar tension for many of us between what we believe God has for us and what we feel capable of. In that tension are our defaults. Each of us has deeply embedded assumptions, attitudes, beliefs, and actions that can, if we aren’t spiritually aware, show up and subvert the work God wants to do through us.
Peter was no different. He hits the default button and goes fishing. I imagine it was a bit like his back-up plan. When things aren’t going well, it is easy to go back to our default. When we don’t know what to do it is easy to hit that default button. If we are honest with ourselves, we all do it.
Essentially, Peter is saying, “I’ve had enough, I don’t know what to do, so I’m going to go back to what I know how to do, and that’s fish.” I know I’ve said something similar at times in my past and I’m sure most of us have. It’s easy to go back to that default.
But the question remains - how do we go from the man tossing nets from the boat in John 21 to the man boldly proclaiming the gospel of Jesus to the massive crowd after Pentecost? That seems like a really big shift for someone, doesn’t it? In fact, I think today, we’d be skeptical of someone who made that big a shift that quickly.
The answer lies in what happens on the fishing trip. Let’s look for a moment at John 21.
1 Afterward Jesus appeared again to his disciples, by the Sea of Galilee. It happened this way:
2 Simon Peter, Thomas (also known as Didymus), Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples were together.
3 “I’m going out to fish,” Simon Peter told them, and they said, “We’ll go with you.” So they went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.
4 Early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus.
5 He called out to them, “Friends, haven’t you any fish?” “No,” they answered.
6 He said, “Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some.” When they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish.
7 Then the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” As soon as Simon Peter heard him say, “It is the Lord,” he wrapped his outer garment around him (for he had taken it off) and jumped into the water.
8 The other disciples followed in the boat, towing the net full of fish, for they were not far from shore, about a hundred yards.
9 When they landed, they saw a fire of burning coals there with fish on it, and some bread.
10 Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish you have just caught.”
11 So Simon Peter climbed back into the boat and dragged the net ashore. It was full of large fish, 153, but even with so many the net was not torn.
12 Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.” None of the disciples dared ask him, “Who are you?” They knew it was the Lord.
13 Jesus came, took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish.
14 This was now the third time Jesus appeared to his disciples after he was raised from the dead.
15 When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” “Yes, Lord,” he said, “you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.”
16 Again Jesus said, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” He answered, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Take care of my sheep.”
17 The third time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love me?” He said, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Feed my sheep.
18 Very truly I tell you, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.”
19 Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Then he said to him, “Follow me!”
20 Peter turned and saw that the disciple whom Jesus loved was following them. (This was the one who had leaned back against Jesus at the supper and had said, “Lord, who is going to betray you?”)
21 When Peter saw him, he asked, “Lord, what about him?”
22 Jesus answered, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me.”
23 Because of this, the rumor spread among the believers that this disciple would not die. But Jesus did not say that he would not die; he only said, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you?”
24 This is the disciple who testifies to these things and who wrote them down. We know that his testimony is true.
25 Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.
During the trip, Jesus shows up. As we talked about last week, when Jesus shows up everything changes. It was true on that fishing trip and is still true today!
Even after all the time they had spent with him, Peter and the others didn’t recognize Jesus. We see Jesus make a promise and then put the disciples in timeout. After pulling Peter from the fishing boat—yet again—Jesus starts to reveal his plans. These plans are more than the disciples are capable of. They’ve proved that already. Jesus also understands that their inability won’t hinder them from trying. They need the promise of the Spirit of God. They need the work of God in their lives to make possible what would be impossible otherwise.
Fewer than two months after this fishing trip, this same Peter will be standing in the wide-open market, proclaiming loudly the good news of Jesus in a way that pricks the hearts of thousands in attendance. Wait, what? What did we miss? How does a person—who was a loyal follower of Jesus but who came to the end of his reserves a few weeks ago—become this courageous evangelist proclaiming life to those who attempted to kill the movement of Jesus? How is that possible?
What happens in the gap makes all the difference in the world. No amount of moral will or spiritual good intentions can make that significant of a shift. It’s the gap that matters. We can lament the moments when we, like Peter, have gone fishing—gone back to our defaults. We love to celebrate the coming of God’s Spirit at Pentecost, which is what seems to provoke Peter’s boldness. However, it’s the gap that matters. We can’t get from fishing to faithfulness in a couple of months without what happens in the gap.
You see, the disciples were not enough on their own. We are not enough on our own. They needed help to truly feed Jesus’s sheep, to spread the good news of the gospel as they had been commissioned to do. We need that same help today. They needed God’s sanctifying grace and so do we.
In his book Way, Truth, Life Dr. Busic suggests that sanctifying grace is the remedy to the inward bend we experience toward the defaults in our lives - that bend that we all have because of sin in the world. Sanctifying grace is the work of God in us that empowers a faithfulness that exceeds our limitations. Sanctifying grace is the amazing gift of God that moves us toward a fuller picture of who we were created to be in Christ Jesus. Busic states, “God not only saves us, but he also transforms us. He accepts us where we are but loves us enough not to leave us there. He reimagines, remakes, and remodels.”
But he can only do that if we are willing to fully surrender ourselves to him and his ways. When we come to Christ and experience salvation, it is new and fresh and exciting. But just like the disciples, there comes the gap. The gap is the place where we really wrestle with our past, present and future, setting the stage for God’s continual work in our lives.
For the disciples the gap was between going fishing and the bold proclamation we see after Pentecost. We need to remember that we will all deal with this gap and it is what we do in the gap that matters. We need to come to terms with our past, present, and future.
Coming to Terms with the Past
The past has often left a mark. From the past we amass baggage, residue, wounds, and default settings. An honest movement toward sanctifying grace means recognizing and consecrating (turning over to God) where we’ve been and what got us there so we don’t remain stuck there. The fruit of sanctification is evident when a person no longer blames everyone and everything else for their own sin. It’s not that they aren’t aware of the conditions that might have contributed; it’s simply that they recognize their responsibility to own their own role.
Coming to Terms with the Present
This is a loaded part of self-reflection that means looking at our shame, guilt, ego, and arrogance. It’s reckoning with our preferences and demands, our prejudices and biases. It’s owning our fears and self-deceit. Coming to terms with our present means identifying our reluctance to embrace the fullness of God’s work in our lives and surrendering that reluctance. It means renouncing our allegiances to ideologies, political platforms, and idolatries that run counter to God’s kingdom at work in our lives.
Coming to Terms with our Future
For many of us, when we became Jesus followers, we sought to hand over our stories to Jesus for the sake of redemption. Unfortunately, we kept the pen—you know, just in case we wanted to write a few of our own chapters. The work in the gap means we hand over the pen to Jesus, and he scripts our story and every line that follows. Coming to terms with the future means we are willing to enter the kind of relationship with God where we take our cues from him. It’s a posture of malleability, willingly formed and transformed in an ongoing manner. Jesus becomes not only Redeemer of our story but also Lord of what comes next.
CLOSING
As Wesleyans, we believe in the beautiful optimism of grace, otherwise known as sanctification. We believe God can work in the lives of believers through the power of the Holy Spirit in such definitive ways that we are no longer held captive to the residue and baggage of our lives. We are set free to love God with all ourselves and our neighbors as ourselves. It’s the objective of this sermon to proclaim the good news of heart change while at the same time helping our congregations understand the work we must do to cultivate the soil of our hearts in preparation of the deep work of the Spirit. There is no magic wand in sanctifying grace. God’s work in us happens as we work with God to name and confess the elements of our past, present, and future that hinder the Journey of Grace.
It is in the gap that we find this radical consecration (a surrendering of themselves, a period of self-reflection, a moment of discovery). The costly work of sacrifice and self-denial is done in the gap.
However, the gap sets the stage for some of the deepest work of the Spirit in our lives. It is in these moments in the gap where God can work in incredible ways in us. It is often a place where we might sense his calling on our lives. It is often a place where God sets us on a new path in our lives that is focused on him no matter our daily career or routine. God’s Spirit makes all the difference in our lives when we let him have control to continually transform us.
This morning, we are going to sing I Surrender All. I want to open the altars and a time of prayer for a time of consecration the altar. I want to invite you into the gap, into the process of with the past, present, and future in anticipation of the work of the Spirit breaking through our defaults. God wants to work in us through his sanctifying grace. Remember, it is a moment in time when we fully surrender ourselves, but it is also a process that continues on for the remainder of our days on this earth as God continues to transform us through His Spirit into more Christ-like beings.