What Now

Introduction

A few weeks back on the liturgical calendar, the church recognized Pentecost Sunday. Penteost Sunday commemorates the Holy Spirit falling on the apostles in the upper room following the ascention of Jesus.

You may remember that in Jesus final moments with the apostles, he told them to wait for the Holy Spirit to come, then He ascended to heaven. For a brief time, they were without Jesus and with the Holy Spirit. In a sense, they were alone. They were lost before Jesus came, and I am sure that they felt lost in His absence. But as Jesus promised, the Holy Spirit came and filled them with eloquence and boldness, to preach the gospel message and live the community of faith as they were commanded.

I teach a theology class on Sunday mornings in Anchorage and have been asked questions that ultimately cry out for guidance on how we live today. People are essentially saying “Okay! I’m saved, what now”? It is such a regular question that I thought it would be good to talk about today with you. In doing so, we have to reflect on some truths about the kingdom of God, our salvation, and the order of things to come. Those are the guiding posts to understand Christian Mission. But first, let’s go to The Lord in prayer!

The Kingdom of Heaven has Come Near...

Eudaimonia

Aristotle was a greek philosopher that lived more than three centuries before Christ. He is known for his approach to achieving Eudaimonia, or the “flourishing of life”. Aristotle said that to achieve eudaimonia, one must develop an active virtuous life. To develop virtue, he said that you would need to find someone of virtue, adopt their habits and put them into practice until they become habit in your own life. The more actively practiced virtue one has, the more flourishing their life will become.

The Good News

For the church, Aristotle wasn’t too far off the mark. God sent His Son, Jesus, not only to save us, but to show us how to live. In the Old Testament, Gods people were floundering unable to sustain their faith and obedience. So God made a promise that He would send a savior. This savior would bring about things such as salvation, justice, hope and promise. The prophet Isaiah foretold about this in Isaiah 61 writing that “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because the Lord has annointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor...”

The Kingdom Has Come Near

Jesus, very early in his ministry, proclaimed himself as the fulfillment of this prophecy in Luke 4. Then, in multiple passages early in the gospels, we hear him proclaim that “the Kingdom of God has come near”. Many Christians are uncertain exactly what that means. What Jesus was proclaiming is that God’s ethical rule is different from what His people on earth have been eperiencing. His is one of love, justice and healing, His is one that cares for his people and offers a life of flourishment. As the embodiment of God’s ethical rule, the kingdom of Heaven truly had come near in the person of Jesus.

From there, we read about the wonderous things he did as a result of of His embodiment of God’s ethical rule. Jesus exhibited such virtues as faith, hope, charity, fortitude, justice, temperance, and prudence. He healed the lame, fed the poor, freed the oppressed by casting out demons. He modeled what virtue to his disciples as they watched him in action. And they, in turn, put those habits into practice until, they too, become virtuous.

The Embodiment of the Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit Empowerment

So, Aristotle was pretty close in his understanding of how to achieve a flourishing life, save one important thing: the transformation is not done of our own effort, but by the work of God Himself. He shows us in the person of Jesus, and transforms us by the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. That is the importance of pentecost! We have been redeemed, we have been shown a better way, now transformation comes to empower us to live according to God’s will.

In Acts 2:17, God says “In the last days, I will pour out my Spirit on my people”. Ezekiel 36:26 clarifies it further with God saying “I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh”. You see, God wants us to live differently. He wants us to live under the reign of HIs kingdom ethics. When Jesus died upon the cross and we accepted Him as savior, we rejected the rulers and principalities of this dark world and accepted Him as Lord. If He is Lord, then we subject ourselves to His rule.

Battle of Actium

How many of you are familiar with the Battle of Actium? It was a Roman naval battle between Octavian and Mark Antony, both of whom were fighting for power to rule over Rome. The Battle of Actium was a decisive victory. For all intents and purposes, Octavian was Rome’s new emporer, intent to bring them into a time of peace and prosperity. Even though he won the war at Actium, it would be 3 more years before he would step on Roman soil as he still was out fighting small rebel skirmishes. The interesting part, though, was that his supporters in Rome received the news and began living according to his rule and heralding his victory to all who would listen. He had not yet sat on the throne, but he was certainly noted as king in the daily lives of the Roman Citizens.

That is what is happening now for the Christians. Christ decisively won the war when he stepped out of the tomb on Easter morning. Our job is to live the truth that He is the king of our lives and to herald it near and far until His return. That is the enabling power of the Holy Spirit in us!

Complete Restoration

Folk Theology

But what should that look like? That’s a great question and one that is difficult because of Folk Theology. You see, over the years, our understood mission has been skewed by Folk Theology. What do I mean by that? Well, over the millennia, we have justified things in the church that we probably should not have; things that are inconsistent with scripture. Let’s paint a picture that might help us to understand it a little better.

Revelation 21

Pretend that you are the apostle John, and you are exiled on the isle of Patmos. You are here as a result of Christian persecution. You have endured great hardship for preaching the gospel, and are now advanced in years. One day, particularly, the Lord’s day, you are praying in the Spirit and suddenly find yourself in the midst of the Holy One who begins to share with you messages for the churches and unveils scenes of things to come, even to the very end where you write these words, “Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4 ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

5 He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”

6 He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life. 7 Those who are victorious will inherit all this, and I will be their God and they will be my children. 8 But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.”

Our Reward Might Be A Little Different Than You Thought

So if I were a betting man, I would wager that the majority of us have developed an understanding that in order to be with God at the end of all things, we will abandon earth and dwell with God in heaven. After all, we discuss things such as rapture and we sing songs with lyrics like, When we all get to heaven. Why wouldn’t we believe that we go to heaven? Even pop culture has us changing our earthly address for an eternal one. We see it in movies, hear it in music, and have been taught that by parents, Sunday school teachers, and even preachers. It makes perfect sense that we have developed this understanding.

Yet, here we find our thinking in conflict with what God has revealed to the Apostle John. We see that the first heaven and earth is passing away, and there is a Holy City coming down out of heaven. John even uses some clever imagery here saying that the Holy City coming down is “prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband”. Isn’t that some interesting imagery. And then it says that “God’s dwelling place is now among the people”.

Consider for a moment, that if the Holy City is coming down presented as a bride for her groom, and if God is now going to be dwelling among His people, doesn’t that sound like maybe there is going to be a marriage? Maybe heaven and earth is going to become one?

We as human beings have limited understanding when it comes to things outside our physical universe. We are bound by space, time and dimensions. But the Bible says that we will be changed like Jesus was upon His resurrection. 1 Corinthians 15:51-52 says “we will be changed-in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet”.

We will no longer be bound by those limitations. Therefore, there will be no dimensional boundaries. There will be no time, no space! See how this imagery now seems possible; even sensible!

And doesn’t it make sense that Jesus would come to dwell with His bride rather than the other way around. In this marriage, Jesus is the masculine husband and the church is His bride. Perhaps we now understand the mystery that Paul spoke of in Ephesians 5:31 & 32 writing that “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery-but I am talking about Christ and the church”.

Point:God’s Plan Might be a Little Different than what Folk Theology has Formed

Friends, God’s eschatological plan might be a little different than what we originally thought. It could be that we have developed an escape eschatology, or an expectation of rapture rather than correcting all things here. But let me ask you, if God is the conqueror that we understand Him to be, and if He has no equal, then why would He not take back that which is His? Sin does not win. Sin cannot claim God’s plan. He created more than the human race, so it makes sense that He would reclaim all of it.

Take care not to establish here false soteriology that all humanity will be redeemed. That is certainly God’s will, but He gives us free will to claim or reject His son. Not everyone will be saved because not everyone will choose to be. Yet, God’s plan of redemption reaches further than man. He will redeem the very cosmos!

Building For The Kingdom

Escape Eschatology

So, eschatological misgivings can cause issues as we consider who we are as a church and how we respond. If we have a mindset that we are embracing an escape eschatology, then we can tend to be a bit exclusive, unconcerned with the state of the world around us. We might still be concerned for people, because we are in the people business in sharing the gospel message. But we would be abandoning earth, so perhaps we are not working to make it better. We might even tend to see it as hostile. In this scenario, we are escaping a dying existence for life elsewhere.

Colonization of Earth

Yet, if we embrace an eschatology that has heavenly citizens colonizing earth, then perhaps our response should be different. Perhaps, under this eschatology, the church’s response is not to be separate from the world, but to be different from it while working to improve it. We clean the house when we expect the king to come, right? If the king is coming to set up His kingdom here, then we should have an even more urgent response. We should be humanizing people, we should become subversive to anything that dehumanizes, anything that neglects caring for God’s created things. We should take a stance not only against dehumanization, but also neglect of anything that God has deemed “good”.

Point: Our Mission Might Require a Slightly Different Approach

You see, under this eschatological understanding, there is greater urgency to carry the message of hope outside of our walls. It calls us to carry Christian wisdom and ethics into the workplace, into committee meetings, into community social functions. It calls us to not only be Christian, but to live out our faith every day in every way.

Wrap Up

So taking a look at our theology under the scope of biblical text may cause us to approach our mission a little differently. No matter what theology we embrace, we do know that Christ is calling us to work in a world with an ethos that reflects His own. With His example and the work of the Holy Spirit, we can accomplish the mission He has called us to. We can live a life that is flourishing, and we can point to Jesus as the author and perfector of that flourishment.