You Are Sent.lakeview
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!”
After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.
Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.”
And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.
If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”
Pray
Being sent by someone and carrying credibility....
Conference, panelist.
A different experience
access to special places
more influence
Is this what it means to be sent, to carry credibility?
Text:
Text:
Let’s set the scene a little for what is going on.....
This is immediately following that first Easter. John’s gospel, in the immediate preceding text, shows Mary Magdalene go and find the the resurrected Jesus. It says that she has this amazing encounter. She thinks she is looking at a gardener until Jesus says her name, Mary, and she instantly knows.
She cries out and runs to take hold of him.
He tells her to go and tell the disciples, and that she does.
Then it turns to the disciples back in the upper room.
fearful for the life at this point:
maybe they do not believe Mary
maybe they are confused
they are definitely concerned that they are next, especially if they know the body is missing
So that is why he shows up and proclaims peace over them multiple times. First because this Jesus just showed up in a locked room after they saw him die days before....but more importantly, peace he in the proclaims in the midst of their troubled hearts.
What is biblical peace?
Peace: Total well-being, prosperity, and security associated with God’s presence among his people. Linked in the OT with the covenant, the presence of peace, as God’s gift, was conditional upon Israel’s obedience. In prophetic material, true peace is part of the end-time hope of God’s salvation. In the NT, this longed-for peace is understood as having come in Christ and able to be experienced by faith.
· It is about well-being, prosperity, and security…and some of us feel like we have lost all of that. Let me be so bold to say that if all we are seeking is well-being, prosperity, and security in the sense of what we own and what we have then it can be taken away. My stomach turns at allowing those words leave my mouth this morning…but the peace that Christ is speaking of is more than that. Back to this definition. “Total well being, prosperity, and security AS ASSOCIATED WITH GOD’S PRESENCE AMONG HIS PEOPLE.”
You are Sent
You are Sent
Then Jesus commissions them. This is John’s great commission.
Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.”
after the commissioning, Jesus transfers God’s spirit to them. The text says,
And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.
Student of scripture, you ask questions. Did he brush his teeth?
Well, not going to answer that theological bomb tonight but there are some questions we must wrestle with:
What does it mean to be sent from Jesus?
What are we sent for?
What does it mean to be sent from Jesus?
What does it mean to be sent from Jesus?
Apostello/being sent.
This is in the perfect tense. Meaning “as the father has sent me” has not come to completion, it is still ongoing. Translation of a completed task would say something like: The Father sent me, and I am sending you,
Not has sent me. This seems small, but what is at work here is understanding that Jesus’ sentness, his mission, is not completed. It is ongoing.
Then he uses this other word for sent, pempo. Apostello has more to do with the fruit of the mission, pempo has more to do with the character and authority of the one send us.
So his mission is ongoing and we are sent in conjunction with Jesus’ mission.
This has all kinds of implications for calling and mission.
This brings in the idea that it is all about the mission of God. Or what the church calls Missio Dei
Missio Dei
Definition: God’s redemptive, historical initiative on behalf of his creation.
To put it plainly: mission is far more about God and who He is than about us and what we do.
1. We are joining him. Not that Jesus sentness is done and now it’s our turn.
Lesslie Newbigin:
“If we say— as we must — that the reign of God was present in Jesus, that it was present in his living, his dying, and his risen life, we have to go on to say that in a secondary, derivative, but nonetheless real sense the reign of God is present (hidden yet revealed to eyes of faith) in the community that bears his name, lives by faith in his person and work, is anointed by his Spirit, and lives through history the dying and rising of Jesus. It is a sinful community. It is, during most of its history, a weak, divided, and unsuccessful community. But because it is the community that lives by and bears witness to the risen life of the crucified Lord, it is the place where the reign of God is actually present and at work in the midst of history, and where the mission of Jesus is being accomplished.”
2. We should always prayerfully look to see what God might be doing and join him in it.
We do this in the most subtle ways as we reduce mission to something that we are doing when we are in certain circumstances. We compartmentalize mission like God takes days off when we are busy or lazy or whatever.
Or we do significant church planning with very little prayer.
What are we sent for?
What are we sent for?
This phrase here: as the Father has sent me, I am sending you. Ok so we are in alignment with Jesus kingdom. What does this life look like then?
We get a hint at the text:
If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”
What a radical statement. One that we could spend a lot of time on, but simply put: You are called to bring salvation into the world. The salvation offered by Christ and in Christ is now offered to the world through the sent ones.
NT Wright quote. Easter people.
“Our task as image-bearing, God-loving, Christ-shaped, Spirit-filled Christians, following Christ and shaping our world, is to announce redemption to a world that has discovered its fallenness, to announce healing to a world that has discovered its brokenness, to proclaim love and trust to a world that knows only exploitation, fear and suspicion...” -NT Wright
Claim life over death
John’s gospel does not lay all of this out explicitly. The synoptics do.
Here is one example:
When Jesus had called the Twelve together, he gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases,
and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal the sick.
Jesus gives the twelve a trial run, a taste of what it looks like. He sends them out with power and authority to:
drive out all demons
cure diseases
proclaim the kingdom
heal the sick
It is another sermon to unpack these, but can I just say that I think we have spiritualized Jesus. Made him more palatable in our experience.
now, a couple observations....
Sent from the resurrection
Sent from the resurrection
The disciples experience this straight out of the resurrection. Two final things here:
Sending happens in resurrection
An encounter with the risen Lord. If you have doubts about this, if this easter celebration is something you still have concern over. Come see me. Talk to someone. Do not suppress those inquiries.
Thomas. Doubting Thomas in just a moment is your representation as he declares, unless Jesus shows up and I touch the scars, I will not believe.
Early church father: sarcastically describes Thomas as too clever of a sleuth. Why do you demand so much Thomas, can’t you just believe. The the church Father resolves....
“ but he is not just representing his doubt but all of our doubts.”
2. What happens when we go outside of our sentness?
It is in power and authority we go. It is from a commissioning from resurrection to claim resurrection in the world.
If we go outside of our sentness, we can see good in the world. we can sustain a little while.
SIGN:
YOU ARE SENT
Where are you sent now? Home? School?