| Following Jesus Next Door |
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“Following Jesus…Next Door” Luke 24:36-49 Luke 24:36-43 “Why do doubts rise in your minds?” There is no time we doubt God more than when death has entered our lives and taken a loved one from us. I’m sure most of us here can remember a time when you received the tragic news of a close friend’s death… or a family member’s death. At first you can’t believe what your ears are hearing. You keep trying to tell yourself, “No, it can’t be true. It can’t be that person. There must be some mistake.” But the friend giving you the news keeps repeating, “No I’m sorry, it’s true. It is true. Here’s how it happened.” But you keep shaking your head, “No, it can’t be possible. I can’t believe it.” “God, why did you allow this?” And for the next couple of days you feel totally undone. You’re in shock. And then everything in your life comes to a grinding halt. The weight of sorrow and confusion engulfs you in a thick, dark cloud. You go completely numb. I remember feeling this way as an 11 year old boy after my brother Matthew was killed in a traffic accident. He was 13. I thought God owed my family His protection. You see Mom and Dad were medical missionaries in Morocco at the time. In my young mind I reasoned that if we were there to serve God, then He would certainly protect us from such tragedies. I mean didn’t Jesus say: “Go into all the world and preach the gospel…and I will be with you always?” This was part of the deal. So when disaster struck, I went spiraling down into a 3-year period of doubting God. My whole concept of God’s goodness and His ability to save me was challenged. I lost faith. There was too much pain and confusion in my life. “I just wanted my brother back!” This is how the disciples are feeling at this moment. They just want Jesus back. All they want is for Jesus to be with them again. How could God have allowed such a tragedy? They don’t understand. They’re confused. It was just two days earlier, Friday late afternoon that they had seen Jesus taken down from the cross. In shock, they watched as some of the women wrapped his lifeless body in grave clothes. They stood in solemn silence as it was placed in that cold, dark tomb. Jesus was gone. Could this really be happening? The reality of His death just wouldn’t sink in. Where was God? What was all this talk about eternal life and a kingdom that would never end? Their disappointment is overwhelming. All day Saturday, I picture them just staring into emptiness, saying nothing, eating nothing, letting the knife of grief carve up their hearts into a thousand pieces. “We just want Jesus back!” I said that many times. “If Matthew would just come back, this pain in my life would go away. Life would be normal again.” It’s into this environment of confusion, doubt, hopelessness and fear that Jesus comes. “Peace be with you!” are the first words out of his mouth. “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds?” Some of you here this morning have been stuck in a long season of doubting God. We can talk about going on mission with God all we want, but if we’re unwilling to trust God fully then we’ll never venture out beyond the 4 walls of this church. Many of us are spiritually paralyzed. I’m not saying this as a judgment against you. I’m only saying this as a statement of fact. Our doubts cause spiritual paralysis. I know from my own experience. Doubt is the enemy of faith. Our doubts keep us from trusting God, and believing that He can, and will turn our tragedy into strength. Doubts keep us from entering into what God wants to do. We stand on the sidelines nursing our disappointments and fears. “God let me down,” we say. “How can I give Him my trust?” Ultimately our doubts keep us from joining God whole-heartedly in His mission to reach a lost world. We will never know the power of the Kingdom if we allow unbelief to reign in our hearts. This is why I say that a doubting Churchgoer is paralyzed spiritually. You may be very energetic and alive physically, intellectually and professionally. But spiritually you have no power because Kingdom power comes through faith in who God is and what God can do through you. When you are in alignment with this, you will have power to change the world. You will be unstoppable. But if you have doubts about how God can use you, you will never experience true freedom. So Jesus finds His disciples caught in the grips of doubt, which leads to insecurity and fear. The door of the room is locked for fear, John tells us in his account of this scene. What doors have you locked? You see when we’re insecure and afraid we too lock doors in our hearts and close out things that are too threatening…too risky. We become skilled at shutting out anything that requires faith. And so our life, even as a church-attending Christian, is reduced to that limited sphere where we maintain control. How is the God of the universe honored by that? How will we ever break out of the four walls of this building, and grab hold of the challenge of impacting our whole region with the love of Jesus? We never will. Fear builds walls and locks doors. But, Hallelujah, Jesus can walk through our walls and our locked doors. If He sees that we have just one speck of desire to stop controlling everything, He will come. It’s like when you’re camping, and you look down at the fire left over from the previous night. If there’s just one tiny ember, you can blow on that ember and start a fire again. But if there’s nothing there, you can blow all day long until you pass out. If I continue to say to God, “I’ll do this, but not this,” then I’m asking God to submit to me; to my limitations. Who is really on the throne of my life, then? The reality is, that if your fears and doubts are limiting God, then you have not given everything to Jesus and made Him your Lord and King. You’re still calling the shots and telling God what to do. This is why I say doubts lead us to be spiritually ineffective when it comes to expanding the Kingdom in the world. And this may be why so many of us take so long to step into our true mission in the world. We’re too busy keeping certain ministry doors shut so that our lack of faith is not exposed. So we continue to respond, “I’m not called to do that, that’s not my gift. Someone else can do it.” This is why I’ve been reluctant to have the pictures of our missionaries put on display in the lobby of our church. In displaying them out there it gives them special recognition. And in recognizing them as special, we begin to think of them as spiritual heroes. By elevating them I would be encouraging the rest of us to think “I could never do what these amazing missionaries are doing.” “I don’t have that kind of faith.” And we’d walk on by. This reinforces spiritual insecurity and perpetuates doubt regarding what God can do through you if you will give Him your full trust. Instead of being put on a pedestal as heroes, our missionaries need prayer; lots of prayer. Their effectiveness and longevity in ministry depends on our regular intercession. And that’s why we have put their pictures on the wall of our prayer chapel instead. Even the apostle Paul, who fully experienced the power of the Holy Spirit again and again in his ministry said: “Pray for me…so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel.” Eph. 6:19. Paul knew that he too could become spiritually ineffective if he gave into his fears. Doubts lead to fear, and fear to spiritual paralysis. “Why do doubts rise in your minds?” Jesus says to us. So what do we do about it? How do we get past the fears we live in? If we’re going to reach the world outside our doors, what should we do? Read Luke 24:44-45 “Then He opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures.” Because we’re such control freaks, when we go through a crisis, or a great loss we tend to want things to go back to the way they were. We get stuck clinging to the past, trying to scramble to regain control. But Jesus doesn’t want to take you back to what life was like before your loss or your surgery, no he wants to give you a new perspective. He wants to give you new insight, like opening a window to a dark room that’s been closed up for so long so that the light of God’s love and truth can come streaming in. And that window is revelation. He wants to give you revelation about God. Jesus’ answer to his disciples’ fears and doubts is not primarily giving physical proof of His presence; but rather, it’s giving them new spiritual insight into who God is and the larger mission that God is on. Jesus opens their minds to understand the full scope of God’s plan of redemption. What you and I need most after a personal disaster is not to have what was lost restored, but to have our emptiness filled with a bigger vision of God. A bigger vision of God is the antidote to the fears and doubts that disappointment drives into our hearts. How did Jesus “open His disciples’ minds so they could understand…?” Well John’s gospel gives us additional insight. John, who was an eye-witness, says that after Jesus had shown them his hands and feet and eaten that piece of fish they gave him, that Jesus then breathed on them and said “receive the Holy Spirit. As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” It’s the Holy Spirit who gives us revelation and opens our minds to understand the Scriptures. 1Cor. 2:12 tells us why the Holy Spirit is so important: “We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us.” I think this is when the disciples came to fully believe in Jesus and understood why He had to die. You might say that this is when they truly experienced the new birth from above. When Jesus breathed the Holy Spirit on them, their minds were opened to the full scope of the Mission of God through Jesus the Messiah. All the words previously spoken about Him by Moses, the prophets of old and the Psalm writers started making sense. You see, only the Holy Spirit’s illumination can give you revelation about who God is and His mission. You have to have your mind opened in order to understand what God is doing. Revelation makes God bigger, more glorious and more trustworthy that we’ve ever known Him to be. In the natural realm humans have a field of view of over 180°, but spiritually we are blind until Jesus opens our minds. When we first come to Christ and believe in him our spiritual eyes are opened. The Holy Spirit comes in and begins to lead us in the truth of God, and He confirms what the Bible says about Jesus. The Holy Spirit, using the Scriptures, is like a telescope through which we are introduced to more and more of God’s ways. The field of view starts small, and all we can understand at first is that Jesus is the Savior. But the more we invite the Holy Spirit into our lives the wider the field of view becomes, and the more we grow in spiritual understanding, and the more our faith in God grows strong. But then disaster strikes! You get cancer, you lose your job, your spouse deserts you or worst of all, you lose that person you love most. The enemy of our soul rushes in to accuse God. He wants nothing more than for the resulting pain, sorrow and fear you are experiencing to cause you to pull away from God. I believe Satan literally tries to put his hand in front of that spiritual telescope and say, “you see God’s not there. He doesn’t care about you. Throw that thing away. It doesn’t work.” If you’re in a season of confusion this morning, call on the Holy Spirit to give you a fresh vision of Jesus. The disciples needed this, and we certainly need it if we want to be delivered from our fears. Romans 8:15 says that Jesus will never breathe into you a spirit that makes you feel like a slave all over again to your old fears. No! He breathes into you a Spirit of Sonship, who keeps reminding you in the deepest part of your being that you are a precious child of God. The Holy Spirit keeps whispering, “Don’t let fear and insecurity overcome you in this time of loss. Father loves you. Let me make you bold, strong and courageous so you can step into the things God wants you to do in the world.” Have you received this Spirit of revelation? Or are you still living primarily in an intellectual relationship with God? Do you still have all kinds of fears and doubts deep down in your heart that keep you from giving Jesus full control of your life? If we do not live daily under the illuminating power of the Holy Spirit we’ll never have our minds truly opened to a full understand of God’s mission. We’ll gladly let others be the missionaries, the sent ones. But we ourselves will continue to live on the sidelines. We may be faithful church-goers, but we will never be Kingdom builders. We’ll want church to be a safe place, free from disruption and free from having to engage the crying needs of the world. The Good Samaritan stands out to in the Bible because when he saw that wounded man lying on the side of the road, he didn’t ask “What will happen to me if I stay?” No, he asked “What will happen to him if I leave?” That’s a totally different question and it leads to a totally different action. Once you receive God’s revelation you begin to ask different questions. You begin to see the world through a different lens. Questions that are self-preserving don’t make sense anymore in light of God’s love and power for you and for the world. The Holy Spirit begins to give you questions that lead to live-giving actions. You discover a new impulse governing you life. A new momentum flowing out of the reality of the Holy Spirit and the new insights He gives you every day. You become unstoppable in your faith. The problems of our Jerusalem are no longer a threat to your existence; they become opportunities to make Jesus famous in the world. Here’s an example of a couple who dared to ask the question, “What will the lives of these children become if we don’t get involved?” That’s a revelation question. That’s a Good Samaritan question. That’s a Holy Spirit question. VIDEO CLIP: Show Joel and Rachel’s interview about the Cumberland Pointe ministry. Rachel said: “I see this as sowing seeds that contain future impact.” That is exactly what it means to live life according to God’s mission. What is the scope of God’s mission? Luke 24:47 All nations must hear. This isn’t referring primarily to actual nation-states as we know them today with their borders and national governments, represented by flags such as we have in our lobby. The Biblical definition of a nation is a people group that shares a common ethnic identity, a common language and a common cultural heritage. In the Biblical sense then, we have many nations living right here in America. From the first nation people who are the Native American Indians, to the most recent influx of immigrants, all of these make up nations living right next door to us that God wants to reach with the good news of forgiveness of sins in Jesus’ name. They are right here in our Jerusalem and Judea. One day at the Caring Closet during our worship time I counted 20 different nationalities. What is God’s plan to carry out this enterprise of reaching the nations? Luke 24:48 Jesus made it very clear what God’s plan is: “And beginning in Jerusalem, you are witnesses of these things.” In other words, God’s command was to start right where you are. Actually, you have to start right in your very own heart by first believing in Jesus and giving him your whole life. That’s what a church like this is for; it serves as a place where you can begin your journey with Jesus. We want this place to be full of people who are just beginning their journey with Jesus. That’s why we’re starting two Alpha courses in February. This is the place you can bring your unbelieving friend to ask all his or her spiritual questions. I long to be part of a church where 50% of those attending are just beginning to walk with Jesus. How exciting! The Church is not a Christian social club for those of us who are seeking a quieter life. Church needs to be that place where people encounter God’s presence, and then are launched back out into the world with new fervor and new insights from heaven to be witnesses of what Jesus has done and can still do today. Once your heart has become the sanctuary where the Holy Spirit dwells, “rivers of living water will flow through you out into the world.” We want this community of believers to be known throughout our Jerusalem and Judea, as a people who never shrink back from going out into the hard places around us. We want to be known as people of hope who welcome into our lives the stranger, the poor, the traveler, the broken, the weary, the alien, the immigrant, the orphan, the widow, and anyone else struggling with the brokenness of sin. This is the kind of testimony we want people to have about us: VIDEO CLIP from Caring Closet. What do people out there say about us? When they hear the word “Christian,” do they say “pffff…please…you know what Christians are like!” What will it take for us to change that? It’s our responsibility. What will it take to get more and more people who don’t go to church saying what that woman in the video said: “What you just did for me means a lot?” You see, that’s the love of Jesus flowing through us into the world. In the Kingdom of God, the heart of the matter is showing our love for God by loving and serving others in Jesus’ name. What should the focus of the church be? “Help make me a better person?” or “Help me make this world a better place?” “Serve me, or help me serve others?” A Spirit-filled church believes that people in the church are best served when they are engaged in service outside the church. There’s dynamic tension between “serve us in here, and service out there.” We need both. We need a strong church in order to build bridges out into the community. We need strong faith in order to go the distance. But we cannot make mission secondary to personal discipleship. It’s both. Mission and discipleship must be happening together. They feed each other. The more you live a missionary life committed to outreach, the more meaningful discipleship becomes. Our small groups and fellowship groups can no longer be just about personal discipleship. We have to include regular missionary outreach. Small groups quite often overpromise and under-deliver what they bring people. That’s why so many fizzle out. It’s pretty sad when the biggest challenge a small groups faces is “what do we study next?” What if every small group, in addition to having bible study, prayer and the kind of fellowship we all enjoy, had a missional focus? Every month or so, take that meeting and turn it into an opportunity to serve someone else who does not know the Lord. Each small group will need to appoint an outreach champion. You already have the other ingredients covered – bible study, prayer and fellowship. But now make outreach as important as everything else you do. What is kingdom effectiveness? We want to be a church which measures its effectiveness, not just by how many people fill the sanctuary on a Sunday morning, but also by the transformational effect the church is having in our Jerusalem. When someone asks you, “So, how’s West Shore doing? The measures we all tend to use are: attendance, budget, number of programs we offer, the size of our staff, etc. Sadly, this is where the measuring typically stops. But really all that we’ve measured are the means that we use. These are the “how” questions, how we go about being the church. We gather 2000 people, we raise 4 million dollars,we run 25 programs. This is how we do church. Sometimes I feel like saying: “So what?” What about the outcomes? How many people’s lives are changed? Whose life is different as a result? Now we’re getting into the questions that God is concerned about; changed lives. How is the community out there better as a result of the things we have done in here over the past 12 months? That’s an impact question. What impact is our church having on the community, on our Jerusalem? Impact is the collective result of multiple changed lives over time. Did the early Christians have impact on their Jerusalem? The best people to answer this question are not the believers, but the non-church goers. You see, we would be tempted to make things more positive. Acts 5:27-28 says “…you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching.” Acts 6:7 says “…the number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly…” That’s impact. What impact are we having on our Jerusalem? That’s the bottom line question. That’s the Kingdom question. What if we asked people around us who don’t go to church, “What impact is West Shore having on your community?” What if we asked the mayor, the school district superintendent, the rescue shelter director, or any other community institution? That’s the bottom line Kingdom question. This is why we initiated Life Giving Saturday. It’s a small step we’ve taken to begin to answer this question. But we must do more if we want to see real impact! This is just the beginning. Are we trying to become the best church in the community or the best church for the community. If we’re just concerned about becoming the best church in the community…best worship, best teaching, best children’s program etc… this could result primarily in transfer growth, and there is very little net increase for the Kingdom. If we start to think about becoming the best church for the community, then we will begin to see impact and resultant Kingdom growth. As a matter of fact, we will want every church in our region to succeed. We’ll look for ways to work together to maximize our collective impact for Jesus’ glory. But we’re not there because most of us are still stuck in our fears, doubts and insecurities. Luke 24:49 “…stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.” We need heaven’s power. It’s hard work going out. It takes courage and a willingness to suffer. It will cost us. To be externally focused a church must be internally strong. We must have heaven’s capital to invest in the community to get interest in transformed lives. It’s not primarily about more money. It’s about more obedience. We must become that holy capital that God invests. As we learn to depend on the Holy Spirit, He will clothe us in power, and we will grow in boldness. Paul reminded Timothy, “God did not give you a spirit of timidity, but a Spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline. So do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord…” What kind of church are we going to be this year? Our Jerusalem is waiting. I believe the Holy Spirit is stirring our hearts. He’s accentuating our hunger to break out of these 4 walls and have a growing impact on our community. For Jesus’ sake, we must go! As we sing this final song, let’s open our hearts to receive the Holy Spirit’s power. |
