In this sermon Pastor Tim looks at how Jesus is sent from the father. The Father and Son send the Holy Spirit. And the Father, Son and Holy Spirit send us into the world to preach the good news and continue the ministry of Jesus!

We have been doing a series in the Gospel of John, focusing in on the final week before Jesus’ death and resurrection.

• And this is the second last week… and I am slowing down to one phrase today in Jesus’ prayer for those who will believe in him. 
• Verse 18 As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. 
• And so as we enter into Jesus’ final prayer before he is imminently betrayed, arrested, tried and crucified 
• It is so amazing to see what he prays for his disciples and ones to come like you and I. 
• So we have seen that Jesus prays for our unity, our love for one another, our protection from evil and for our sanctification. 
• But we are reminded today, that as the children of God, we are a people sent into the world to continue the life and ministry of Jesus.

Let’s have a look at John 17:18-23

18 As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. 19 For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.

20 “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— 23 I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

I wonder if you have ever been sent somewhere with a message?

• I remember at High School, you’d sometimes be sent to take a message to another teacher…
• And if you were anything like me, you would take your time… possibly swinging by the canteen to see if you could get a cheeky custard tart…
• But I was reading this week about one original famous sent messenger 
• And running has always seemed like a bad idea to me… I prefer the water…
• But I am talking about Pheidippides, the inventor of the marathon, sometime around 490 BC
• Do you know what Pheidippides died of?
• That’s right… running a marathon! Cautious tale right there….

But so the legend goes, 

• After the badly outnumbered Greeks somehow managed to drive back the Persians who had invaded the coastal plain of Marathon
• An Athenian messenger named Pheidippides was sent from the battlefield to Athens to deliver the news of Greek victory. 
• After running about 25 miles to the Acropolis, he burst into the chambers and gallantly hailed his countrymen with “Nike! Nike! Nenikekiam”
• Which means: “Victory! Victory! Rejoice, we conquer!”. There you go…. We are learning lots of things at church today… Nike is Greek for victory
• Well anyhow, after being sent all that way… he then he promptly collapsed from exhaustion and died.
• And so the marathon was born!

My other favourite marathon story is from the 1904 Olympics… 

• Where an American runner named Frederick Lorz fell ill during the race and hitched a ride in a car for half the race…
• As he then jogged into the stadium for the finish people started cheering him… and he thought…
• No one knows I hitched a ride… so he picked up his pace and crossed the finish line first, arms in the air claiming victory…
• Lo and behold he was soon found out and was disqualified… and spent the rest of his years trying to tell people he had only been joking!

Well, (and here’s my tenuous link) like Pheidippides, as the children of God, we are sent with a message of victory into the world…

• As Jesus prayed… Verse 18 As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. 
• With the same message and mission of Jesus… calling people out of darkness and into the light…
• That forgiveness and relationship with God is possible through coming to believe that he is Lord
• That on the cross our sins are dealt with and through the resurrection, new life and eternal life are possible!
• That we like Jesus work on the side of healing, mercy, justice, grace and truth….
• We are sent into the world with a marvelous message to share!

Now this idea of being sent is all through the Gospel of John. It doesn’t just appear here in John 17.

• Jesus clearly understands himself as sent from the Father… that is God
• Jesus clearly understands that he will send the Holy Spirit so that the whole thing can continue
• And Jesus clearly meant for those who would believe in him, that they would be sent into the world.
• Something we then see in the Book of Acts and of course continue through history!

Do you agree? 

• This word sent or send is used over 60 times in John… and it’s a consistent thread all through the gospel.
• Just a little bible thing… one great way to get into the bible is through tracing themes and ideas and words through the story…
• In John it has been things like light and darkness, love, believe, glory and so on…
• So let’s look at some of the almost 60 times the word sent is used in the Gospel of John…

John 4:34 “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.

• So Jesus says the most basic thing that keeps me going is to do the work of God, who sent him into the world.

John 5:24 “Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life.

• So Jesus links the gift of eternal life to believing his words and in the one who sent him. 

John 6:38 “For I have come down from heaven, not to do my will, but to do the will of him who sent me.”

• So again, Jesus ties his mission to doing the will of his Father in heaven who sent him
• So that is how we understand Jesus healing and compassion and teachings… he’s come to do the will of God.

John 7:16 Jesus answered, “My teaching is not my own. It comes from the one who sent me.

• So Jesus understood what he taught to just be what God had sent him to teach. 

John 7:29 but I know him because I am from him and he sent me.”

• So Jesus claims intimate knowledge of God and his character and the mission of God because that is who he has been sent by.

John 12:44-46 Then Jesus cried out, “Whoever believes in me does not believe in me only, but in the one who sent me. 45 The one who looks at me is seeing the one who sent me. 46 I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness.

• OK, this is a big one… massive claims here about who has sent Jesus. 
• Here, he is saying, If we come to believe in Jesus, we come to believe (and see) the one who sent him – that is God
• And in doing so we come out of darkness and into light. 

OK, and then there is a shift towards the end of the Gospel when Jesus moves from talking about how he has been sent from God, to how he will send two things… the Holy Spirit and Us!

John 15:26 “When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father—he will testify about me.

• So just as Jesus came from the Father, he now promises to send the Holy Spirit to keep testifying about Jesus.

And then us… from todays passage…

• Verse 18 As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. 

And one of the very last thing he says to his disciples at the resurrection

• John 20:21 Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.”

Good huh? OK? Clear… 

• The Father sends the Son, who only does what he sees the father doing…
• The Father and the Son sends the Holy Spirit to continue the supernatural work of God in the world…
• And the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit send you and me…
• Like Pheidippides, we have a victory to proclaim, that we are sent into the world as messengers of!

So I think it would just be good to get some clarity around what are we being asked to do?

• Because at this stage I think a bunch of us freak out…
• We are happy with believing in Jesus… we are happy with going to church and even serving each other…
• But the idea of being sent freaks some of us out. I mean, what do you mean… I need to go and become a street preacher or a bible basher. 
• The answer is yes… yes you do…. Haha… no… there are lots of ways we can participate with God in being sent into the world.
• So think of Jesus mission and the myriad of ways that he brings life to people… and we begin to get a sense of the things we can be sent into the world to do!

One of the best places in John’s gospel where we see this idea of being sent to bring life is in John chapter 10. 

• Jesus is talking about the people and forces that rob people of life and in calling himself the Good Shepherd… and so he declares… John 10:10
• “I have come that they may have life and life to the full”

So as we have said here before at church, there are two words for life in the bible… zoe and bios. 

• Now bios is a word that gets translated as life, but it refers to our biological life… ultimately always given to decay and perishing…
• This is my, do some landscaping and be unable to walk the next day, life. 
• It is our life that endures sickness and pain and in one sense is given over to our desires and sinfulness…
• But then there is this other words for life in the bible which Jesus uses here and it is zoe. 
• “I have come that they may have zoe, and zoe to the full.”
• This is the divine, eternal, whole life that belongs to God and that is given to his children who believe. 
• It is a full life that starts now and lasts into eternity. 
• So when someone comes to believe in Jesus they cross over from bios to zoe! And from death to life… from darkness to light. 

Now there are a bunch of things Jesus is obviously sent into the world to do…

• Preach truth
• Demonstrate the kingdom
• Be the lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world…

But as we think about what we are sent to do…. I wonder if we just focus in on this idea of bringing life

• Now I think we have a great mission statement at this church? Anyone?
• “Joining God in bringing life to Manly.”
• Why did we choose that? Well because at the heart of what we want to be a part of, is to see people move over from death to life… from living a bios, perishing reality to a zoe, life and life eternal reality!
• Right: we want to bring this eternal, divine, whole life to our community
• And it comes through us being sent into the world, into Manly to share and demonstrate this message. 

I think about the Christian surfers down in Manly…

• Or the guys helping at the Salvation Army
• Or the people helping with Friday youth, scripture in schools, Playtme…
• Right – we are sent to bring life to our community!

You know, the Apostle Paul picks up on this theme of being sent and bringing life in 2 Corinthians. 

• The OG of being sent into the world says this…

2 Corinthians 3:14-16

¹⁴ But thanks be to God, who always leads us as captives in Christ’s triumphal procession and uses us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of him everywhere. ¹⁵ For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. ¹⁶ To the one we are an aroma that brings death; to the other, an aroma that brings life. And who is equal to such a task?

Haha – you know I ready this passage and couldn’t help but think of my friends Scotty and Noni

• Who spent their entire long weekend trying to find a dead rat in the walls of their home
• The stench of death being so overwhelming that they eventually smashed a bathroom tile and cut out plaster board to get to the little decomposing fella!
• But you know that stench right? We’ve all been there…
• How much better to have the aroma of Christ filling your life!

So just quickly, what is the Apostle Paul saying here?

• Well as Jesus followers got on with what he prayed they would do….
• Paul compares it to a triumphal procession. Now these were what happened after someone like Pheidippides had come and announced the victory over an enemy…
• The returning King and soldiers would then march through their home city streets with the plunders of their victory…
• And this would often contain the herbs and spices and wealth of their defeated foes. So it would literally smell good.
• There would be an aroma filled triumphant procession… got it?

So Paul says, now that Christ has won a victory (a Nike) over death and darkness…

• His followers spread the aroma of the knowledge of him everywhere we go.
• We are to smell like Christ… good news, his pleasing aroma to those who are being saved.
• Now to some that aroma that will bring death… and there is nothing you can do to stop that… some people just reject the good news of Jesus.
• But to those who believe and respond and are saved, it is an aroma that brings life!

Now I’ve got to say, Manly Life, you are a good smelling bunch… well at least most of you!

• Haha!
• But as you work and live and are involved in this community…
• You are sent to bring life… and to being the aroma of Christ which is life into these very streets. 
• Does that make sense?

So… share with someone the good news of Jesus – that’s the aroma of life. 

• Live counter-culturally generously, giving away to the poor and those in need… that’s the aroma of life
• Practice hospitality and welcome – that’s the aroma of life
• Lead like a servant to others… metaphorically washing the feet of those below you… and that the aroma of life
• Spend your life on issues of justice and mercy and kindness… and that’s bringing the aroma of life!

And of course there is a flip side to all of this…

• If you are just like the rest of the world…
• Stingy, heartless, closed off…
• Never sharing the good news, never inviting people to church or into community…
• You are going to smell… but not like Christ. 
• But as this passage in John 17 where Jesus prays says; “I have given them the glory that you gave me.”
• If you got the glory of Jesus in you… you can’t help but smell good!

Let me finish with this… I remember reading an interesting bit of research on Christianity a few years ago.

• The gist was that ordinary Australian were asked about their feelings towards the church and then their feelings towards any Christians they know.
• And basically the research showed that ordinary Aussies have a pretty bad perception of the church.
• But then asked “do you know any Christians” they would consistently say, oh yeah, I know a bunch of Christians and I really like them. 
• You know “they are great parents” or “they are really friendly.’
• And to me that speaks to the need for all of us to be fearless in sharing the Gospel.
• Friend at the swim… all the nicest people I’ve met in Sydney are through you guys and they all seem to go to your church. 

Well I certainly don’t feel inspired to run a marathon like the poor Pheidippides who was sent with good news of victory

• But I hope you do feel inspired to be sent by Jesus (just as he prayed for us) with a message of good news found in Christ. 
• Like Paul who says in Ephesians 6:19 Pray also for me… that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel.

In this sermon, Tim looks at how Jesus came from the Father and has overcome the world. in doing so, Tim gets us thinking about Christ and culture and how we engage the world around us.

John 16 From the Father

Great to see everyone!

• I hope you’ve had a good week.
• Introduce myself… out in the courtyard after the service and I’d love to meet you.
• Worship this Wednesday…
• Members Meeting on May 25^th to find out more about our campus strategy… 
• And to vote on the adoption of Haberfield Baptist. All very exciting. It feels like God is in it and we have a good plan coming together!

Happy Mother Day 

• Favourite story is of a friend of mine… 
• Proctologist… so tired from being up all night with her baby…
• Gone to early prayer at church
• Then rolled into work… public hospital Drs meeting…
• Prayed
• Relevant to our sermon today… but aren’t our mums wonderful!

We have been doing a series in the Gospel of John, focusing in on the final week before Jesus’ death and resurrection.

• Its often called the Upper Room Discourse
• And in it we find Jesus instructing his disciples as to what is to come as he heads back to his Father in Heaven
• And beyond the command that we would love one another as Jesus had loved us…
• We see all of these promises about a place in the Father’s house for those who believe and the promise of the Holy Spirit
• Who will help them in times of opposition.

And then last week I thought Peter spoke really well on the disciples grief and joy!

• Following Jesus doesn’t mean we are spared from grief and troubles… but we have Jesus helping us in the midst.
• There can be a peace and joy that is not of this world…
• So we continue today, and I want us to be thinking about how we engage the world around us
• Knowing that we are part of a story that has changed countless millions of lives and continues to transform the world in which we live!

Read John 16:28-33

28 I came from the Father and entered the world; now I am leaving the world and going back to the Father.” 29 Then Jesus’ disciples said, “Now you are speaking clearly and without figures of speech. 30 Now we can see that you know all things and that you do not even need to have anyone ask you questions. This makes us believe that you came from God.”

31 “Do you now believe?” Jesus replied. 32 “A time is coming and in fact has come when you will be scattered, each to your own home. You will leave me all alone. Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me.

33 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

Well I want to talk today about Jesus’ incarnation and then in turn how we can be incarnational as followers of Jesus

• Two phrases: “I came from the Father” and “I have overcome the world.”
• Shaped by the way Jesus came into the world, and how he overcame the world
• And filled with this promised peace in the passage!
• This is some of the most radical thoughts that Jesus brings into the world. That he has come from the Father… from God… 
• So this is about how God reveals himself to his creation, doing this by dwelling with us 

And this is central to understanding John’s gospel and his view of who Jesus is. Remember John 1:14 (PICTURE)

• “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
• So God, that is the Word becomes flesh and the incarnation happens
• And we get to see God’s glory, because the son comes from the Father… 
• And he is full of grace and truth.
• So that is the incarnation… it’s like when you go camping and pitch a tent in a field… you dwell amongst those you have camped with!
• God with us is Jesus… camped out on earth… dwelling in our midst

So one of the things that we have seen in this series, is that as Jesus prepares his disciples for life without him and mission.

• There is this clear call that they are to go out into the world to bear fruit. 
• They are called, just like Jesus, to be light in the darkness
• They are called to have a visible love for one another that demonstrates the kind of servant leadership on display of their Master. 
• They are called to be filled with the Holy Spirit in order to testify to the truth.

But one of the significant questions that has asked through church history is how?

• If we as Christians are like Jesus meant to dwell amongst the world around us…
• How do we engage the prevailing culture and worldviews and communities that we find ourselves in?
• Afterall there are all kinds of complexities…
• There is obviously a radical difference between the values of the Kingdom Jesus came to demonstrate, and the values of the world. 

Of course there is a weird tension in that here in Australia we live in a culture that is still broadly shaped by our Christian past

• And so the church runs schools, has politicians in most major parties
• Christian ideas like charity, the dignity of each individual, extending mercy
• These are still things we find in our culture… even if increasingly they aren’t attributed to their Christian roots…

But then at the same time there is a growing darkness and opposition to the Christian faith. 

• The sexual revolution of the last 50 years has elevated self expression and promiscuity and our rights over our responsibilities in relationships…
• The elevation of conspicuous consumption… flaunting your wealth as a sign of your power and prestige. 
• And there is always the temptation into racism, sexism and division in our culture.
• So how do we bring the gospel to bear on an increasingly dark and selfish culture that’s heroes are more likely to be Kandashians than Mother Theresa…

So to get a bit nerdy today, as we think about the incarnation, I want us to think about how we engage the world around us with the good news of Jesus…

• And the paradigm for our engagement was well articulated by Richard Niebuhr in his 1951 book Christ and Culture. 
• And he outlined a number of ways that historically the church has engaged the world. 
• All of them in one sense have a place, all of them have verses of the bible that support them for certain seasons or situations… 
• So if our loyalty or allegiance is to Christ and his Kingdom, how do we live in this world?
• So I am going to look at 3 of them, and then we will get back to the passage for some answers…

1. Christ against Culture! 

So this is really where there is such a strong rejection of the values and culture of the world around us, that we withdraw from society

• People who have taken this position would be influenced by a verse like Ephesians 5:11 “Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness.”
• Or 2 Corinthians 6:14  “Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?”
• The thinking goes, so dark is the world and corruptible… that we should be separate and withdraw from culture in order not to be tarnished.

When I was in my 20’s I lived in West London in a place called Hammersmith

• To be honest I really enjoyed it… by the river Thames and not far from the city and a great church and community of young people…
• But I remember there was this large block on Hammersmith Road with this 10 ft wall behind which the Sisters of Nazareth lived.
• And this Christian community, surrounded by homes and pubs and workplaces, had cut themselves off from the world around them (PICTURE)
• They desired to live lives, untouched by the culture beyond the walls of their community.

I guess the reality is that we can do this in our own way… put up our own walls.

• And I guess particularly if you have a background in certain habits, addictions or lifestyles, you may need to for a season separate yourself from the world in order not to be enticed back in.
• But we can also unhelpfully do this even in a church like Manly Life where it is safe and fun and life giving community and we end up having no friends outside of the church
• And I guess the challenge to this comes from Jesus himself who calls us to be the light of the world… you cant do that by hiding your light under a bowl. 

So you can see the tension in this position. 

• But it is also one that is not without merits…
• Christ against Culture has gained recent attention again with an American author named Rod Dreher, whose book The Benedictine Option was a NYTimes bestseller.
• Dreher argued that with the culture moving so radically in the other direction of Christianity and family values…
• That we, like the monastic period during the dark ages 
• May need to start our own schools and communities in order to preserve the Christian faith and have it propagated to the next generation.
• What do you think? Is it convent time?

• Christ of Culture

And I guess at the heart this position is that Christ and culture are not really all that different

• And who are we to condemn?
• If God is the creator of all things, we are in his image, then surely we must move with the times… 
• And that in not always seeing culture as evil, we may participate in it, giving us a relevant voice in order to speak to people.
• A verse may be something like 1 Corinthians 9 “I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some.”
• Now of course a position like this can take many forms…
• From just syncretism, where we take on the culture around us, behaving and living no differently…
• To honest attempts to stay with the times, being empathetic to the latest values and to being involved in the latest trends and activities…

So we want to be culturally relevant but it can also go horribly wrong. (PICTURE)

• We had the sad story of a Pastor in New York a few years ago that became a Pastor to the elite stars of Hollywood and the music industry…
• Loved hanging with the Beebs… 
• Replete with tatoos and expensive fashion and getting about in private jets.
• But ultimately in the desire to be relevant and in the culture, he himself succumbed to temptation, trashing his own marriage and the church. 
• I guess the warning being, you can’t transform something you are the same as.
• So although this is probably the easiest posture to take towards the world, we can get swept up easily in the culture around us
• We become nothing more than cheerleaders for the culture
• So it’s easy to be compromised…

• Christ Transforming Culture

So maybe this is a half-way position… one that emphasizes the goodness of creation….

• But in bringing the gospel to bear on culture, affirms what can be affirmed and seeks to transform what is corrupted by sin and selfishness. 
• So Christ transforming culture involves being in the world in order to be different and transform the world.
• Jesus says you are the salt of the earth. Jesus says you are the light of the world.
• The Apostle Paul says don’t be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. 
• Or Ephesians 2:10 “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” (PICTURE)

One of my friends down at the swim is Bruce Baird…who I have coffee with a couple of times a week.

• He is a Christian man and was both a State and Federal politician here in Australia
• So as a Christian he incarnated politics…
• Some of us remember him for his role in helping win the Olympics for Sydney as the Minister for the Olympic bid
• But he was also known for the principled stand that he took against his own party when it came to the way Australia was treating refugees
• Basically he visited our off shore detention camps and as a Christian couldn’t see how he could square the bibles teaching on human dignity and call to show compassion to refugees. 
• Now this is not the greatest example of Christ transforming culture, because he didn’t really shift his parties position, and it kind of ended his upward trajectory in politics…
• But he spoke up, he defended the voiceless, he took a stand and tried to bring his Christian faith to bear on culture!

Now I am not saying there are not times to go along with the culture, and I am not saying there aren’t times to withdraw from the culture… it will depend on situations…

• But I think in general I find my heart and faith most drawn to this position.
• Christ the transformer of culture… 
• We walk the line between being in the world, but not of the world, and committed to the gospel that transforms the world.
• We take our stand for Jesus and his Kingdom and the Christian vision for a just, compassionate, moral world. 
• We dwell, incarnationally amongst the mess seeking its renewal and life!

So from todays passage what do we see about this….

Verse 28 Jesus says “I came from the Father and entered the world.”

• Verse 33 Jesus says “take heart! I have overcome the world.”
• So how we engage the culture is linked to the entire story of Jesus coming into the world and it is all through John’s gospel. 
• And the way of course that Jesus overcomes the world is by undermining its powers and principalities by dying on a cross and rising again. 
• He enters in, in order to serve, and transform and show mercy.

So the doctrine of incarnation is more than just the fact that God dwelled with us… it is how he dwelt with us…

• You see it is all good and well that God has made himself known, but the thing that captures us as believers is how he dwelt with us! 
• Put bluntly… God incarnated amongst the mess and that is what changed everything…
• He did not come to be untarnished by the world… instead he came to transform everything, taking the broken and making it new. 

Take Luke 15 It says; 

• “Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
• He then goes on to tell stories about the lost being found. Of not coming for the healthy but the sick. Of coming to seek and save the lost.
• So Jesus eats with sinners, but he doesn’t become a sinner. 
• Transformation involved engagement. 

So he didn’t withdraw from the mess, he wasn’t changed by the mess… he overcomes the mess!

• As you think about your workplace or family or neighbourhood…
• We certainly don’t join in evil or be overcome by evil…
• Nor do we separate us from all the evil in order not to dirty ourselves by the world
• But we engage evil with good… we are Christ transforming the world around us. 
• Our incarnation of the world is obviously different to Jesus… we are not God in the flesh…
• Need to remember that church is not fully in the image of God, we are flawed…
• We are not the answer in the same sense as Jesus was… though some of us do have a bit of a messiah complex…
• But importantly we do carry the presence of God…  

So to close today how then practically do we become incarnational… taking on the same mission of Jesus to renew creation?

1. Be soaked in the Jesus story…

Alpha Course sponge…

• Undoubtedly the thing that changes the world is the way Jesus loved.
• And we cant live like Christ unless we are soaked in his love and life…
• The most radical, impactful Christians I know, live out of his story…
• Dwelling with the broken, praying for the sick, speaking grace and truth.
• Right? Don’t soak up the culture and its values and narratives…
• Soak up and overflow the Jesus story!

• Practice hospitality

At the heart of how Christ dwelt amongst us was hospitality… he dined with tax collectors and sinners.

• I want us to consider one thing about Christian hospitality though… 
• It wasn’t that Jesus showed hospitality in the sense of putting on a feast… rather he accepted invitations to go and eat in others homes…
• I mean both inviting in and accepting invites are good… 
• But if we only ever get as far with our hospitality of being the one in control, the inviter… then it is still on our terms…
• But if we make ourselves vulnerable to accepting the invitation from others not like us… that is where the real power of hospitality may break out!

• Incarnation undermines rather than overpowers… 

And this is a good place to finish… because we are never more like Christ in his incarnate state

• Than when we dwell like he dwelt… being servants of all. 
• So much of where our faith has gone wrong and been misguided has been in trying to force our will upon society and culture. 
• And in doing so, we lost touch with the humanity, life and teaching of Jesus.
• What transforms culture is the humble Christ and the kingdom of God he brings. 
• We don’t overcome evil with evil, but overcome evil with good…
• What is the answer to all the mess we see around us? 
• You… dwelling, serving, bringing the presence and love of God to a broken and messed up world.

In this sermon Peter Brooks explores grief and joy through the lens of John 16 and Jesus message to his disciples in the Upper Room Discourse.

In this sermon Pastor Tim speaks on one of the more difficult passages in the Upper Room Discourse. Jesus explains that just as the world hated him, it will hate his disciples. How do we make sense of this, particularly as we see so much evidence go this around the world and even emerging in the West today?

John 15 Persecuted Church

Great to see everyone!

• I hope you’ve had a good week.
• Introduce myself… out in the courtyard after the service and I’d love to meet you.
• A special happy birthday to my little boy Luca who is 8 today. Love you mate and very proud of you!
• Funny kid: he has started calling me “Little Timmy” and loves nothing more than a wrestle with Dad.
• Term 2 is really launching this week with Life Groups, Playtime, Movie Night…
• Get connected: QR codes… weekly email…
• Get involved: life better when we do it together…

Well we are doing a series in John’s gospel… particularly in the last week of Jesus life… 

• And I thought Lani’s message last week was really important. 
• She spoke on John 15:9 where Jesus says “now remain in my love.” 
• Verse 10 Jesus says “if you keep my commands you will remain in my love.”
• Verse 16 Jesus says “I chose you and appointed so that you might go and bear fruit, fruit that will last.”

I almost wonder if it is the heart of what Jesus is trying to communicate in this final discourse with his disciples…

• That as we remain in him, we will follow his commands, which fundamentally is a command to love each other as Jesus loved them… 
• And that in doing so we will bear much fruit.
• Right? Not a bad leaving message.
• Stay close… do what I’ve told you to do… 
• And your life will produce the kind of results that mine has. 

And that makes so much sense of all that he has done to this point in the upper room discourse.

• Right… he is showing them how to live and love before he goes to the Father in heaven….
• That’s why he washes their feet demonstrating a kind of servant hearted leadership that gets low and serves… 
• And so much of what we see in the early church and then the best bits of church history…
• And indeed in the church today is the fulfilment of this section of Jesus teaching….
• You will do the things that I do… as you stay close, keep my commands, love each other and bear fruit!

One of the major charities… or mission organizations that we support here at Manly Life is called Homes of Hope International.

• And it was started by one of our elders here, Greg Beech.
• And for me it is such a joy that we support and cheer on Greg as he works with local partners amongst the poorest and most marginalized people on earth.
• We and so many of you support children through HOHI.
• My wife Victoria got to go on a mission experience trip to India got to see first hand their work amongst trafficked women and children in the red light district of Mumbai in Indian.
• And they give these children of the red light area an education and a home and love and kindness…

So Jesus commands us to love one another. Jesus tells us to go and bear fruit…

• In other places Jesus exhorts us to care for the poor and widows and imprisoned…
• But how does it go from hearing that, to setting up homes for the most downtrodden people on earth…
• Well, if I know Greg’s story a bit it comes from spending time with Jesus… 
• I think Greg’s testimony would be you can’t remain in Jesus and not respond in one sense as he has done!
• The most natural thing in the world to do if you follow Jesus is to end up doing things like this.
• That doesn’t mean it is the most common thing that followers of Jesus do… too many just sit on their hands…

But if you take being a disciple of Jesus seriously, if you remain in him, if you obey his commands 

• This is the kind of fruit you will produce through your life.
• That doesn’t mean we all will start orphanages (though I’d suggest every Christian has a duty to give to and be serving the poor)
• But in our own spheres, we will be known as a lover of others… sacrificially, servant heartedly, merciful. 
• Right?

You can’t hang around Jesus, remain in Jesus, him be in you…

• And not end up living generously, and sacrificially, and concerned and involved with the poor. 
• Your life will end up being a reflection of the things Jesus said and did…
• Amen!

Ok, well, as we come to the next session, it gets a bit rougher…

• And I know the primary aged kids are in today, so I’ll keep it PG…
• But in this next section of scripture, Jesus starts to warn the disciples about the opposition they will face as his followers.
• And look, it’s really important that we preach all the bible, not just the bits that tell us we will live loving, whole and purposeful lives… and have eternal life.
• Because the reality, and many of us know this… is we face opposition from the world when we follow Jesus in truth and grace!
• Let’s have a look…

15:18-21… Jesus said…

18 “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. 19 If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. 20 Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. 21 They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the one who sent me.  

So, just a light passage today…  

Well if we take this passage in the light of the whole Gospel

• I think it is fair to say that the news of Jesus is always received as a blessing or a curse.
• Jesus is someone to be accepted or rejected. Believed in or dismissed. 
• Faith is something to be admired or despised
• Followers of Jesus are often celebrated or persecuted. Loved or hated.
• And we know this today don’t we? 
• For every person in our community who either follows Jesus or at least admires him, there are now many who mock, ridicule and see Christianity as dangerous.
• I know down at the swim I do there is this one older guy…
• And every time I see him, his words are something mocking God or faith. 
• I wonder do you have people like that in your life?

And of course that may seem strange, particularly in light of what we have just been talking about in loving one another and bearing fruit.

• If we are following Jesus faithfully you would think being known for our love would lead to universal admiration.
• But of course that isn’t true… 
• And part of that is we are also calling everyone, everywhere to know Jesus as Lord
• And that will involved turning from sin and aligning your life with a new master. 
• To many Christian ethics, indeed belief in God is something incomprehensible. 

So in this passage, was Jesus being paranoid? 

• Because maybe it could sound this way?
• The world will hate you. The world will persecute you. The world is guilty as it hates me. 
• This is without doubt some of the hardest teachings of Jesus to hear…
• And it is also some of the most accurately fulfilled teachings of Jesus in the lives of those who would and will come to follow him.
• Just to be clear again on what this passage is saying…

Firstly, (vs 19) makes clear, If we just look like the rest of the world they will be fond of us.

• Right… if there is no difference there will be no problem…
• This is often called syncretism… where Christians just blend in with the culture around them, even adopting the same beliefs and practices…
• If there is absolutely no difference between us and the world around us that doesn’t follow Jesus, then we have nothing to worry about.
• If our morals and ethics and way of treating one another is a mirror of the world, then we aren’t going to face persecution, because…
• Well there is nothing for the world to oppose within us. 
• If we use our money like the world, if our sexual ethics are the same as the world, if we are in constant conflict with one another like the world…
• Verse 19 tells us “the world would love you as its own”

But secondly, opposition is normal… Jesus says, verse 20…

“Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also.”

• The gist here is that if we are like Jesus… if we his servants, follow the way of the Master
• Well just as they persecuted Jesus, they will may persecute us. 
• This is tough to hear right?
• Again, we prefer the gospel that says we will have life to the full and the gift of eternal life…
• But for every blessing that knowing Jesus and following him brings in our lives…
• There is the reality of opposition if we are faithful in our following of Jesus. 

So just to finish, I want us to look at this from 3 vantage points…

Historic, today in many places, and then in our culture…

Firstly, in the time of Jesus life and the early church… opposition was strongly felt!

• I like what the theologian NT Wright says… in John’s gospel we see people encounter Jesus and say “no thank you!”
• Right? They saw Jesus multiply and feed the thousands with bread, but choose to stay spiritually hungry.
• They saw Jesus heal the blind man but chose to remain spiritually blind themselves…
• They saw Lazarus raised to life and decided to kill of Jesus, less more people believe. 
• Indeed Judas saw Jesus wash his feet… and still betrayed him. 

The context of this passage is Jesus’ imminent persecution in which he is betrayed, tried unjustly and crucified… 

And then first 300 years of the church is a pretty awful story.

• While there are incredible stories of salvations and healings and the transformation the gospel brings…
• It was also a time of marginalization, martyrdom and persecution… 
• The powers that be, did not take kindly to a growing movement of people from every tribe and tongue and class and gender…
• Who confessed Jesus as Lord

One of the most confronting stories in the Book of Acts is of the first martyr, Stephen. 

• So Stephen, full of faith and love for Jesus explains the gospel publicly only to be stoned to death by the religious leaders
• And there, we read, is a man named Saul who is keen to stamp out this new movement started by Jesus and his followers…
• It says he was there giving his approval to Stephens death. 
• But of course this persecutor encounters the risen Jesus on the road to Damascus. 
• And he becomes the apostle of good news to the gentiles. 
• He goes from harassing and jailing followers of Jesus to being a pioneer of the church in the known world. 

And I think it is good to be reminded of this story….

• Because sometimes those who oppose the gospel the strongest, become the most faithful followers of Jesus.
• The Apostle Paul describes what happened in 1 Timothy 1… it says;
• “Even though I was once a blasphemer and persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy… The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.”
• Isn’t it interesting that at Dan and Ash’s wedding that I took 2 weeks ago, we read a passage from Paul on love in 1 Corinthians 13. 
• Only God friends, can turn someone from hate to love!
• Well despite this one mans conversion, of course much persecution continued… 

Well, the second vantage point is today in vast parts of the world. 

• And sadly of course followers of Jesus are opposed in over 50 countries today. 
• In many places being a Christian is illegal, churches are not permitted and followers face daily risk of imprisonment or even death. 
• I mean just a few years ago, we woke up to the news that a church in Sri Lanka had been bombed
• And we read of followers of Jesus in the Middle East who lose their lives for following Christ. 

Invite Greg up who founded Homes of Hope International 

• And who works with hundreds of Pastors in India particularly who are facing very real opposition…
• Greg: what is it like for these Pastors and Christians?
• Why do they keep going under such opposition?
• How can we support and pray for these men and women?

OK, final vantage point is us here in the West today in a place like Sydney?

• How might we face what Jesus talked about in John 15? 
• And I think hearing very real stories from places like India can seem a long way from what we experience here in the West.
• Yes there is some persecution of Christians in a place like Sydney…
• If you are a Muslim woman in Bankstown who becomes a follower of Jesus, you are in for a tough journey.
• And certainly in some newspapers, even the SMH, Christians are often ridiculed in the Opinion pages…
• But the reality is for Christians, that despite waning numbers of practicing members… we still run schools, hospitals, nursing homes and many of the charitable organisations that serve the poor in our city.

But I think even in my life time I have seen the church and Christians move from being favored and admired, to tolerated, to seen by many today as the problem. 

• And I guess while we all want to be loved and admired, the reality is that any opposition that we face…
• Brings us more into alignment with what Jesus would say would happen
• And with what millions of our brothers and sisters in Christ face around the world.
• Indeed I would suggest that if we are truly following Jesus it would be odd to not face opposition for our lives, our beliefs and our ethics. 
• They are only going to increasingly be seen as at odds with the world around us. 

Well if at work being a Christian is getting challenging, or in your family your faith is mocked or marginalized how might we respond?

• Do we take up the weapons of our opposition and respond in kind?
• Of course not, that would just make us echoes of the world around us…
• We in the words of Jesus are called to 
• John 15 “love one another as I have loved you.”
• Matthew 5:44 “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”
• And remember Matthew 10-12 Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. 12 Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven.

And we get on with what we were talking about at the start…

• Apostle Paul who was imprisoned and whipped, kept on planting churches in so many of the great cities of the ancient world…
• William Wilberforce the Christian parliamentarian battled on for over 30 years fighting against the Atlantic slave trade before his opposition gave up and he won.
• Rev Martin Luther King fighting against segregation was imprisoned and beaten, and yet ultimately his moral force overcame…
• What about you, and the causes you care for, the faith you proclaim, the things in Christ you make a stand for?
• As Paul said in 2 Corinthians 4:17 
• “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.”
• We keep perspective and we remind each other of who we belong to, and what is our destination…

And of course as Christians we uniquely know how the story ends…

• In the Book of Revelation, Jesus is described as the lamb that was slain.
• It’s a reference to his sacrificial role in reconciling us to God…
• And yet the lamb, Jesus, sits on the throne…

I love the story of a small Methodist church in Prague – not far from where Victoria’s Dad came from!

• Under communist rule for much of the last century it was not allowed to advertise, let alone tell people it was a church
• Under the atheistic communist rule, Czechoslovakia became a freedom starved nation for 45 years.
• The Christian community was harassed, the church persecuted and a worldview that had no place for Christianity dominated the whole region…

On November 27th, 1989, the day that communist domination came to an end in Czechoslovakia the bells of churches rung out across that city for the first time in half a century .

• Spontaneous celebrations of freedom erupted all across Eastern Europe as atheistic and tyrannical governments suddenly disintegrated. 
• And that small Methodist church in Prague put a simple sign on the front lawn of the church.
• It read: The Lamb wins…

In this sermon Pastor Tim celebrates Easter Sunday by following three royal scenes in John’s gospel that point towards Jesus as King!

Easter Sunday 2023

Great to see everyone!

• He is risen! He is risen indeed!
• Introduce myself… Tim, married to Victoria, 2 kids… 
• It is great to have you here celebrating Easter with us. 
• It is a profound time of year where we get to reflect on the death of Jesus and to celebrate his triumph over death!
• You are so welcome and I hope you enjoy our service today! Easter Eggs…

Baptisms immediately after the service!

• Represents new life in Christ!
• Great to hear from the people getting baptized…

Well, we have been doing a series in John’s gospel in the lead up to Easter, so I thought I would stay there…

• And speak to the Easter story from John’s account of the life of Jesus.
• One which he summarized as saying;
• “I have written these things that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”
• That is the story of all those getting baptised…
• It is not just about believing but also about coming into this full, whole life through Jesus!
• So our series has been in the week before Jesus death and resurrection, often called the Upper room discourse in which Jesus prepares his disciples for life without him
• And now we come, in one sense to that moment. 

I want to talk today about Jesus as King, looking at 3 scenes from John’s Gospel…

1. His entry into Jerusalem where he is hailed as King
2. His death on the cross where he wears a crown of thorns, mocking him as King
3. His resurrected appearance where he is confirmed as King.

Many years ago when I was studying theology in Vancouver I re-read as an adult the Narnia books by CS Lewis.

• They are a series of kids novels that Lewis wrote while a lecturer at Oxford University in the 1950’s.
• That serve as an allegory for the story of Jesus.
• Maybe because I was deep in study of theology I needed to have it explained to me in slightly simpler terms. 
• It’s about my reading level too!
• And you can’t beat Lewis story of the frozen land of Narnia where a King who appears as a Lion named Aslan comes on the scene 
• Of course in Revelation Jesus is described as the lion of Judah!

And so right as 4 children arrive through a mysterious wardrobe into Narnia, Aslan is back on the scene to claim his throne as King 

• And to set free the land of Narnia from its Witch Queen 
• And so the children come through the wardrobe into a land where the Witch has imposed an enchanted, eternal winter on Narnia, symbolizing a dead, stagnant time. 
• Nothing grows, animals hibernate, and the inhabitants live in fear… 
• The Witch’s winter destroys the beauty and the life of Narnia.

Of course Aslan the wise, caring but powerful Lion represents Jesus

• And the story culminates in a great battle between good and evil after Aslan takes the place of Edmund who has betrayed his siblings.
• The witch whispers in Aslan’s ear “so much for love.”
• Of course CS Lewis has in mind John 15:13 “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
• The one perfect life of Aslan is laid down for imperfect life of Edmund.
• But in doing so, Aslan reminds them of the Narnia prophecy: 
• “When a willing victim who has committed no treachery is killed in a traitors place, the stone table will crack and even death itself will turn backward.”
• And so Aslan, the true King of Narnia gives up his life for Edmunds… who I must admit is a rather annoying kid!

And then of course something amazing stirs… Aslan who has been tormented, bound and killed lies on the stone tablet.

• Susan and Lucy stay with Aslan’s dead body all night. In the morning, they hear a great cracking noise, and are astounded to see the Stone Table broken. Aslan has disappeared. 
• Suddenly Susan and Lucy hear Aslan’s voice from behind him. 
• Aslan has risen from the dead. 
• They then join the battle between Peter’s army and the Witch’s troops. 
• Peter and his troops are exhausted. Fortunately, Aslan swiftly kills the Witch and Peter’s army then defeats the Witch’s followers.
• Narnia is liberated from evil and the King is returned to his throne. 

For those of us who love Narnia, I think the story has had an enduring legacy, not just because it is a great way to introduce children to Jesus and what he has done at Easter…

• But because there is a great longing to have someone like Aslan in control…
• And a deep sense that this world, like Narnia is not what it should be…
• And wouldn’t it be great to have our lives, indeed our world redeemed and set right and made new.
• Not just by another ruler or politician or influencer…
• But by God himself… coming in the flesh as King…. To rule and redeem and bring life back to a decaying world. 

Poses the question – how does this world that we live in get put to rights?

• I think of the wars and injustice and poverty…
• But also the internal battles we all have with bad habits and broken relationships…
• And if there is a God who is interested in his creation…
• How might he go about redeeming the darkness and brokenness in this world?

Well in the story in the bible, there are lots of themes in the Old Testament that get fulfilled by Jesus.

• And one of those is the longing for a King who would appear on the scenes and save his people. 
• And so when the people of God come into the promised land out of slavery in Egypt, they had no King because God was their King who had rescued them.
• But they rejected him and demanded that they would have a King like other nations.
• So God gave them what they were after… 
• A King after their own hearts called Saul…

But he wasn’t a great King because he sinned and so ultimately God gave them a King after his own heart…

• And that was David
• And God’s promise was that one of David’s descendants would be a great King, a Son to God and this son would rule a Kingdom that would have no end.
• It would be a kingdom of righteousness… and justice and mercy!
• And so they wait… and wait… and wait… 
• For the one who would deliver his people and set the world right again!

It’s a all a bit Narnia’esque isn’t it!

• Waiting for a King to appear who would set things right… who would free the people from their captivity and slavery. 
• Well with that in mind, I think we can frame the story of Jesus as the story of God coming as King to rule and restore his creation
• And it will happen in the most surprising and unusual of ways.

Our first royal scene occurs the week before Easter

Word had spread about this travelling prophet who was doing remarkable miracles, things that people had seen with their own eyes…

• Healing a man born blind, feeding the 5,000 with a few loaves, and now raising Lazarus from the dead…
• Of course they want to proclaim Jesus as King…
• If he could do that… then surely he is the promised one… 
• And maybe he could banish the Roman occupying forces…
• He could put the world to rights…
• Surely this is God’s long awaited King coming to rule and set things right…

Let’s read John 12:12-15

12 The next day the great crowd that had come for the festival heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. 13 They took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting, “Hosanna!  “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”  “Blessed is the king of Israel!”

14 Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, as it is written:

15 “Do not be afraid, Daughter Zion; see, your king is coming, seated on a donkey’s colt.” 

It’s an amazing royal procession…

• Jesus enters into Jerusalem on a donkey and the people come out to worship him.
• Verse 15 refers to an ancient prophecy in Zechariah 9:9 that promised the King who would come to set things right would arrive on a donkey!
• Can you imagine? They know this prophecy about their redeeming King…
• And then almost on cue… Jesus arrives on a donkey!
• And so they cry out “Blessed is the King of Israel”. 

But there is a sense they want a worldly King… one who will do their bidding and meet their expectations… 

• Telling of this is how the crowd that has adored him turns on him just a week later.
• And we turn to that scene now…
• Indeed the same adoring crowd will a week late cry “crucify him… we have no King but Caesar.”
• We’re a fickle bunch us humans… beware being swept up into the mob!

So the second royal scene happens about a week later

And how things seemingly have gone wrong. 

• After a week spent with his closest disciples, washing their feet, commanding them to love one another as I have loved you…
• And then being betrayed by Judas… it is not looking good. 
• Let’s read John 19:1-3 and then verses 16-19

Verse 1 Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. 2 The soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head. They clothed him in a purple robe 3 and went up to him again and again, saying, “Hail, king of the Jews!” And they slapped him in the face.

Verse 16 Finally Pilate handed him over to them to be crucified. So the soldiers took charge of Jesus. 17 Carrying his own cross, he went out to the place of the Skull. 18 There they crucified him, and with him two others—one on each side and Jesus in the middle. 19 Pilate had a notice prepared and fastened to the cross. It read: Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews

Well this second royal scene is not what we might expect after the first one where Jesus is greeted with adoration!

• We reflected on this on Friday at our Good Friday service.
• Now we find Jesus being crucified on a cross amongst common criminals.
• There are complicated reasons, but basically the religious leaders have conspired with the Roman powers to remove Jesus from the scene.
• They see him as a blasphemer for claiming to be God 
• And they are jealous of the people who have gone over to him, undermining their power.
• In their words they claim he must die, because he claims to be the Son of God (19:7)

But there is a telling thing that happens on the cross…

• He is given a crown of thorns… 
• And mockingly a plaque is placed above his head that says;
• “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.”
• It’s a brutal scene. One of the most devastating pictures we can ever comprehend. 
• Everything that is pure and right in Christ, meets every thing that is wicked and evil in humanity. It is carnage. 

Of course, what to a casual observer, would look like a defeat…

• There is something deeper going on…
• While the sign above his head is intended to mock him… 
• It is of course a coronation of the servant King… the one who comes to defeat sin and death 
• Again a bit like Aslan in Narnia who refers to a deeper magic… there is more going on than meets the eye.
• This is not just another executed revolutionary…
• This is, in the words of John the Baptist, “the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.”

Nonetheless, the one who had entered Jerusalem and been hailed as King

• Is now laid bare before the world and mocked as the King of the Jews
• Dying on a cross with a crown of thorns on his head.
• But this Jesus, this King, this Son of God is not finished…

So the final royal scene occurs 3 days later… 

And really that is what we have come to celebrate this morning.

Let’s read John 20:24-28

24 Now Thomas, one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!”

But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”

26 A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!”27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.” 28 Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”

So 3 days after his death, the disciples are buzzing with good news…

• Already Mary has reported back to the disciples that at the empty tomb Jesus has appeared to her.
• Then in an upper room, he appears to his disciples, bestowing upon them peace, the gift of the Holy Spirit and forgiveness..
• But Thomas we are told was out at the time… he had missed all of the action.
• He has his doubts…

It reminds me of the one day I ever wagged High School. I just couldn’t be bothered to go so stayed home and watched the Rocky movies…

• And of course that was the day that at school assembly the US Power Team came and visited.
• And apparently they were bending metal bars and lifting multiple children above their heads and bursting watermelons with their bare hands… 
• Well if that has caused in me life long FOMO, I can only imagine how Thomas felt missing all of these appearances of Jesus. 

So Thomas who wants proof in order to believe, is there a week later and we are told Jesus came and stood amongst them saying “peace be with you”

• And he invites Thomas to see and touch where the spear and nails had pierced his body.
• It leads to a simple confession… a very royal one.
• Thomas said to him “My Lord, and my God.”

Now obviously beyond that being a confession of faith…

• It is also a confession of who Jesus is… the King of Kings. Lord and God. 
• And Thomas knew the meaning of that word Lord… in Greek it was the word “Kurios”… it was his people’s way of speaking of their God. 
• But as a subject of the Roman empire, on every coin was a picture of their earthly King, Caesar. 
• And on that coin was the inscription “Caesar is Lord!” 
• To question Caesar’s Kingship was to be punished with death!
• Thomas confessed on seeing the risen Jesus, “My Kurios”… he is my God, he is my King. 

In the Narnia story that CS Lewis wrote to communicate the story of Jesus to children

• It is a wonderful thing once Aslan has died on Edmunds behalf
• And defeating death joins the battle to defeat evil and restore Narnia to life. 
• Suddenly the woods are completely alive, flowers are blooming
• This is no ordinary Spring… the Witch’s winter is over and Narnia is experiencing the epitome of life rather than death.
• And the rightful King is back on his throne.

And friends, I think that is what coming to know Jesus as King does

• It doesn’t mean we never suffer again or experience pain… but we move from death to life.
• From Winter to Spring
• I was reading this week about the singer and artist Nick Cave. 
• Who in his life has experienced violence and drug addiction and the loss of his own Son.
• At one stage he was described as being in the most violent band in Britain.
• And if you know his music, he has wrestled with God and life for 40 years.
• But Nick Cave is back in church and finding strength and meaning in Jesus. 
• Something new is emerging in Nick Cave… new life!

That is the point of Easter… 

• Remember, the author of John’s gospel wrote “I have written these things that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”
• When we come to acknowledge Jesus as “My Lord and my God.”
• When we recognize Jesus as King, the one who comes to defeat evil and restore life
• A remarkable Spring occurs in our lives…
• One that we can experience now and that lasts into eternity! 

Amen

Who do you serve? Simple confession…

In this sermon Pastor Tim explores Jesus teaching on the vine and the branches, that as we stay connected to the source of life, we will be fruitful!

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Well we are doing a series in John’s gospel… particularly in the last week of Jesus life… 

• Entered Jerusalem and explained his coming death as like a seed that falls to the ground and then sprouts and grows and reproduces…
• It’s a foreshadowing of what is to come in the following days with his death and resurrection… and the birth of the church. 
• Washed his disciples feet and explained that this is the way of life he is calling his disciples into… 

He then gives the only command recorded by Jesus in all of the gospels… “love one another as I have loved you.”

• And then we talked about Jesus comforting his disciples by promising them a room in his Fathers house and how he is the way, the truth and the life…
• Next, knowing he is going away and not wanting to leave them as orphans in the world, he promises to send the Holy Spirit…
• And then we are just swapping weeks around, so Clayton will finish John 14 next week on the promise of peace…
• And today, I’m speaking on fruitfulness… Jesus as the vine, and we the branches, connected to him in order to bring  forth life!

15:1-8… Jesus said…

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. 3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4 Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. 

7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

9 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.”

16 years ago while in Kenya I drove with Stephen and Rosemary Mbogo to a field in the Ngong Hills just outside of Nairobi.

• Stephen is now the head of African Enterprise – a major mission organization in Africa which focuses on evangelism, leadership development and aid projects.
• But 16 years ago, Stephen and Rosemary wanted to show me an empty block of land upon which they wanted to start painting a dream that God put on their hearts
• Although at the time Stephen was the head of African Enterprise Kenya and Rosemary lecturing at African International University

Still involved in a church in a slum in Nairobi called Mathare North. 

• There, lived hundreds of child orphans from the HIV crisis that was sweeping Kenya. Many of those kids end up in street gangs sniffing glue or being trafficked into prostitution. 
• So on that field they purchased, far from the worst conditions of the slums they built a children’s home.

So a few years ago, 13 years later, I was back in Kenya and I was privileged to go back to the same field… now transformed into a school and children’s home called ByGrace.

• On that field stands an amazing children’s home for orphans, there now stands three, 4 story classroom towers, a kitchen, toilets, a soccer pitch and extensive gardens. 
• Of the 400 students, over 100 are orphans or from destitute families who pay no fees….
• Instead they are educated, loved and brought up in an atmosphere of faith and kindness and hope…
• Head student was in the words of my friend who was there with me last year, “a total jock!” 
• Means that in a good way… like he was the Luke Wilson of Kenya! Muscles in his neck!

His name was Fred and just 4 years earlier he was living with his parents in a fishing village living day to day in poverty. They couldn’t afford to educate him so By Grace sponsored him to come study.

• In 4 years he has learnt English and become head boy… and he just kept popping up
• At recess we found him with his sleeves rolled up unblocking the toilets 
• During the holidays, rather than going home he did laboring jobs so that he could pay for his brother to come to the school.
• In a chapel service he jumped up on the keyboard and during one of my talks, he didn’t have any paper so he took notes all over his arms… (tough to do with black skin)
• And Fred loves Jesus and is so thankful for ByGrace.
• Without the vision and actions of Stephen and Rosemary he would still be uneducated and living in squalor. 
• And if your wondering…. Its too late… Maria from our church (also on the trip) is already helping him get through uni!

On the Sunday after I preached at African International University’s chapel service, Stephen and Rosemary invited us back to their house on campus for lunch.

• Got to there house and was greeted with this incredible shoe rack 
• Thinking what is this? Some kind of weird shoe fettish?
• Then I realised that 16 of the children from the ByGrace home now live with them because they have graduated High School and are studying at uni.
• And they all call Stephen and Rosemary “mum and dad”
• Stephen as a Kenyan earns good money as head of an international mission agency – African Enterprise and Rosemary is a lecturer at African International University. 
• They love their jobs, but I got the sense the reason they do them rather than be full time at ByGrace was so that could afford to adopt more and more children. 
• Introduce them to Jesus, love them like their own children and provide opportunities they would otherwise never have!

Now I tell this story, obviously because I am inspired and challenged

• But I wonder for us here this morning? What does fruitfulness look like to you?
• What does a life of meaning and purpose look like for you?
• Indeed could you define what you are wanting the result of your life to be?
• And why do something like this? Why not keep upgrading your life to higher levels of luxury?
• Well hopefully the answer is you want to bear good fruit in your life… fruit that will last!

Well what an amazing passage.

• As Jesus prepares his disciples for life without him… knowing they will become the church… the visible expression of his life and ministry going forward.
• He calls them to a very specific task… fruitfulness. 
• As the children of God, we are called to be fruitful, to live faithfully connected to the source of life.
• So Jesus in John 15, describing himself as the vine, and we the branches….
• And our role as the church is to bear fruit… to increase, to multiply, to live productive, meaningful lives as the church, and as the people of God.

Now one of the things that we want to do, if we want to be a healthy church… and represent Jesus well…

• Is to be guided by the pictures in the NT of the church, away from buildings we attend or institution we are a part of… to God’s pictures of what he calls us to be.
• So we are called to be a family, where we love and are loved.
• We are called to be a body where we have a part to play to make it function and we serve one another.
• We are called to be a spiritual temple to be built of living stones…
• We are called to be like a bride in marriage in which we are called to be faithful
• And now, Jesus’ people, as a vine and branches, in which we are called to stay connected to him and to be fruitful!
• So not a bad picture emerging… loving, serving, growing, faithful and now fruitful.

So Fruitfulness. Meaning. Purpose. Productive lives. 

• I find it interesting how much research there is on the creation of meaning in our lives through finding purpose and being productive. 
• Oscar Wilde once said “to live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”
• It is the going through the motions, perhaps pursuing low level pleasures.
• I must admit that one of the scariest things I could contemplate in life is treading water… or not living with purpose and trying to be productive!
• Indeed one of the reasons I count myself so fortunate is that I have been able to be involved in the planting and growth of this church!
• And what excites me is the potential of us having services in other campuses that are also healthy and alive!

But why do meaningful things? Why aim for a fruitful life?

• Well, there is lots of reasons, but one of them is because life is full of suffering and darkness… 
• And for this life to count, we need to be armed with virtue and a purpose to take on the futility and forces that rage against us. 
• Jordan Peterson calls it the nobility of purpose.
• You have that, you have something to set yourself against the suffering and darkness. 
• So when Jesus calls us to bear much fruit, when he calls us to be the light of the world, when we are called in the scriptures to overcome evil with good…
• That’s nobility of purpose!

The reality is that we all need a sustaining meaning… a reason to get out of bed on a terrible day!

• In John’s gospel where we find this passage on the vine and the branches, Jesus is constantly at work, at battle against the darkness and death that pervades this world.
• Whether it is the resurrection of Lazarus, the healing of the man born blind or the mercy he bestows on the woman caught in adultery…
• Everything is oriented towards creating life! Towards bearing fruit and blessing!
• Jesus says, look at my life… look at the kind of things I do, the way I treat people, the words I speak.
• Then stay close to me… abide in me, remain in me, and you can start producing the same fruit. 

Now, this is an idea that we can trace from Genesis to the NT 

Constantly in Genesis, God commands his people to be fruitful and increase in numbers. Like over a dozen times… he keeps saying it to every generation…

• And this is a part of this Abrahamic blessing or promises in Genesis 12, 15 and 17 
• That God would take his family and make them into a great nation that would be blessed and a blessing to all nations.

So an example, Genesis 35:10-11 

God says to Jacob “Your name is Jacob, but you will no longer be called Jacob; your name will be Israel.” So he named him Israel. And God said to him, “I am God Almighty; be fruitful and increase in number. A nation and a community of nations will come from you, and kings will be among your descendants.”

• And then in Genesis 49:13 Joseph is called a fruitful vine!
• So the mandate of God’s people, his church… has always been to be fruitful and a blessing, just like a healthy vine produces fruit on its branches!
• We are to increase in numbers and influence the world around us bringing life.

Now of course, the people of God are not always faithful in keeping this mandate to be his faithful, fruitful people.

• I think my favourite passage on this is found in Isaiah 5 and parable of the vineyard.
• In it, the prophet describes the people of God as vineyard that God has planted…
• It says, verse 2 “He dug it up and cleared it of stones and planted it with the choicest vines.
  He built a watchtower in it and cut out a winepress as well.

So there is this sense of God loving his children, looking out for them, longing for them to produce good fruit in their lives…

• But verse 3 says “Then he looked for a crop of good grapes, but it yielded only bad fruit.”
• And it goes on to describe the kind of bad fruit being produced… 
• Instead of justice, God saw bloodshed, instead of righteousness, cries of distress…
• They become greedy, arrogant… and how is this for line (particularly with what we see in our culture going on…)
• Verse 20 they call evil good, and good evil…
• So what is God going to do?

So along comes Jesus in John 15… and he is going to do for the people of God, what they could never do for themselves!

• Verse 1 “I am the true vine.” So he says, I am what it looks like to be fruitful.”
• Verse 5 “I am the vine, you are the branches. Apart from me you can do nothing.”
• So Jesus takes on the fulfilment of the promise to be the set apart one. The productive one, the one blessed by God who blesses the nations!
• What does it mean for him to be fruitful… well as I said, he heals the sick, he has compassion on the broken, he speaks words of forgiveness and mercy.
• Jesus is the embodiment of the mandate of Israel. He is the source of life from which we are blessed and will produce blessings. 

And then he calls us to stay connected to him as the branches in order that we might bear the same fruit!

• 4 Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit.”
• So its simple gardening here… you can’t cut off a vines branch and then hope it will produce fruit.
• I can’t go to my passionfruit, hack off all the branches and then expect those branches to keep producing fruit. 
• It’s simple… unless the branch stays connected to the vine it cannot bear fruit!
• Indeed the warning is that the branch that produces no fruit will be cut off and thrown away.

So let’s just be clear here!

• You. Are. Called. To. Be. Fruitful. As. A. follower. Of. Jesus. 
• We the church are called to be fruitful as the people of God…
• And we can only do this by staying connected to Jesus. 
• And really this is just what is called good old fashion discipleship. You learn the way of the master by being in his presence and learning the trade. 
• Like a carpenter who spends 4 years connected with a Master Builder… and then over time begins to do the same work!
• That is what it means to remain in Jesus. That is what it means to remain in his love. We stay connected in order to be fruitful.

And then here is the interesting thing for your life, for the life of the church. How do we produce fruit?

• This is not to be the result of strategic masterplans (helpful as they may be)
• This is not achieved by having brilliant facilities, (helpful as that may be)
• But it is simply the result of being connected to Jesus. 
• IT WILL HAPPEN!
• If we want to grow the church, or we want to be fruitful and live meaningful lives… it comes from being connected to the source of life.
• Stephen and Rosemary… connected… fruitful…

Right? Branches don’t work really hard to bear fruit… (squeezie face)… they just do so naturally as a result of being part of a healthy vine. 

• It is the vine that is the source of life. 
• It is the vine that determines the type of fruit. You can’t get lemons from an orange tree.
• It is our connection to Jesus that will produce Jesus like fruit. 

That’s the kind of church that I want to be a part of and serve.

One that is so full of the life of Jesus that it grows naturally out of our connection to Jesus. 

• We watch and learn from his way of life and then imitate his way of life.
• We see how he loves people and treats them with dignity and then we imitate his love
• We watch the miracles and power and authority that he has and then we audaciously pray for the same miracles to be at work in our church
• Right?

Years ago, some of you will have attended our ministry night with my friend from London, John Peters

• And it was an incredibly fruitful night. Particularly in the ministry time. Some of you had deep, powerful encounters with God that night.
• And undoubtedly, a big part of that was what John brought and the way he ministered…
• But here is what is interesting to me… 
• John arrived the day before and we did a leaders night… but then he had the entire day free in the lead up until the ministry night.
• So typical me… I was like… yay! 
• Let’s hang out… like all day… we can catch the Manly ferry, go swimming at the beach… get ice cream together…

But no. John basically said to me… pick me up at 5pm, I need to spend the day with Jesus in prayer and the Word. I need to get myself ready…

• And then when he came to speak, he was doing it from a place within Jesus.
• Does that make sense?
• John 15:5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”
• It felt to me like Jesus was moving through the room that night encountering people. Why?
• Because a branch of Jesus had spent the time to be deeply connected to the vine. 

So what about you? What about us as a church?

• What do you see that this church could become?
• What part do you see yourself playing? How will you serve and play your part?
• And what about your life in general? What will be the outcome of the life that you live?
• Will it produce no fruit because you get distracted or look inward or seek the wrong things in life
• Or will it be fruitful? Will you have pushed back against the darkness and the temptation to worship idols or seek meaningless pleasures. 
• Will you imitate the life of Jesus Christ and bear the kind of fruit that he produced in his life and ministry?

The Apostle Paul put that challenge to us this way in Colossians 1:10; “live a life worthy of the Lord, and please him in every way, bearing fruit in every good work.”

What if rather than seeking happiness and comfortableness you pursued fruitfulness and meaning?

• Question: What would be the most worthwhile thing you could do with your life? (PAUSE)
• Command: Told you – Do the most worthwhile things with your life.
• Campuses… ask you to be involved… to give, to serve, to go, to stay, to serve…
• Find hard, difficult, costly things to do in your life and do that. 
• The by product will be happiness… 
• But even through difficult, deeply difficult times, you will have become strengthened by purpose and have developed the character to get through…
• Seriously. 
• Amen.

In this sermon Pastor Tim explores the promise of Jesus to not leave us as orphans in the world, but to send the Spirit of Truth. Tim looks at how Jesus was in the Father, the Father was in him, and now Jesus promises to be in his followers. This is what enables us to do the works of Jesus, keep the commands of Jesus and to become like Jesus!

Little recap on this series in John’s gospel… last week of Jesus life… 

• Entered Jerusalem and explained he is going to die in order that life may emerge… like a seed that falls to the ground and then sprouts and grows and reproduces…
• It’s a foreshadowing of what is to come in the following days with his death and resurrection… and the birth of the church. 
• Talked about being the light… and wasn’t that a doozey of a week!
• Washed his disciples feet and explained that this is the way of life he is calling his disciples into… 

He then gives the only command recorded by Jesus in all of the gospels… “love one another as I have loved you.”

• And apparently it is by our love for one another that the world will know Jesus is at work in us! Who would’ve thought.
• If people are going to see Jesus in us… they need to see the love of Jesus demonstrated by the team… 
• And then finally we talked about Jesus comforting his disciples by promising them a room in his Fathers house and how he is the way, the truth and the life…
• So today… knowing he is going away and not wanting to leave them as orphans in the world, he promises to send the Holy Spirit…
• Lets have a look…

John 14:12-21

Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.14 You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.

15 “If you love me, keep my commands. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— 17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. 18 I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19 Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20 On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. 21 Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.”

I was reading this week that something like 50% of people growing up today in Australia are growing up with no religion…

• Not Christianity, not other religions. Just nothing…
• Maybe they have some vague spiritual ideas… pick up a few things along the way on tiktok or through Justin Beiber… 
• Maybe when faced with a death in the family they will say something like “heaven needed another angel.” Or “they are now shining down on me.” 
• I guess that is comforting but it is not really based on anything…
• But for 50% of this next generation, they don’t belong to a church, or believe in anything spiritual. 

And I think sometimes when you come to follow Jesus you just want to share that with everyone… and sometimes we try and make it seem palatable or not too weird.

• But actually I think weird is good. 
• Because if you have no background in Christianity it must sound pretty weird. 
• And I have kind of come to the conclusion that the weirder the better.
• How’s this for a claim from Jesus… verse 20; “I am in my Father” right… 
• And he wants to be in us. Verse 20; “you are in me, and I am in you”
• Right, so he is saying God the Father is in Jesus. And Jesus is in God.
• And Jesus Spirit will come to live… in us. 
• That’s pretty weird… but pretty amazing!

So what Jesus is claiming in John 14 is this…

• The God who created the heavens and the earth… the one he calls Father…
• He is in… and the Father is in him… 
• And then (verse 17) the Spirit lives with you and in you.
• Right? God, the supernatural force that created the world has come to dwell in Jesus…
• And the promise is he will come to now dwell in you and me!

So God being in Jesus is what allowed him to do signs and wonders… enabled him to preach the truth and show us what the Father is like…

• And then get this… pretty weird… but also amazing…
• He claims that God in him… that Spirit of truth that was at work in Jesus will now live in his followers.
• Not everyone…
• But those who believe and trust in Jesus… who become the children of God….
• They will be empowered with the same Spirit that illuminated and empowered and animated Jesus. (say again)

Right? That is why in Acts, Paul will ask believers “have you received the Holy Spirit?”

• We kind of use terms like impartation and being filled?
• The idea being that you are a fleshy vessel that gets filled with things…
• With ideas, with a conscience, with feelings…
• But, and this is pretty weird… but also amazing…
• If you come to follow Jesus… your fleshy vessel will get filled with God!
• And that is what will give you the power to be transformed into His likeness…

You get this amazing scene in John’s gospel in chapter 20. Jesus has been crucified and laid down his life… just like he claimed he would to take away the sins of the world.

• Then he appears to the disciples, afraid as they were, in the upper room.
• And it says he breathed the Holy Spirit on them and filled them with his peace and presence.
• That’s pretty weird… but pretty amazing…
• And they are told to go and forgive people sins… to proclaim this message of salvation and rescue that is found in Jesus…
• This Jesus who was in the Father… and who the Father was in… is now Lord of all mankind.

Now (and this is pretty weird and amazing) he gets in you.

• Our passage today, Jesus had said (John 14:12)
• “whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these.”
• And here is the crazy thing… they do… 
• Who do? They do. We do… 
• Post being breathed on by the Holy Spirit… read the Book of Acts… they start doing the works of Jesus.
• When Jesus ministered… because God was in him and he was in God… he could do God enabled things… 

And then with the Holy Spirit living in the disciples… as promised by Jesus in John 14 and given in John 20… They begin to do the works of Jesus.

• Read about it in Acts 3, Peter and John heal a lame beggar in the name of Jesus. 
• Right? It’s just like what Jesus had been doing… 
• When Jesus ministered he proclaimed the coming of the kingdom of God, the forgiveness of sins and salvation for the lost.
• Then in Acts2, you can read how filled with the Holy Spirit, the disciples shared the good news of salvation in Jesus… and it says thousands are saved. 

Right? When Jesus ministered he showed incredible love and mercy and generosity to the broken and outcasts…

• Then guess what? Filled with the Holy Spirit, the disciples start to practice great acts of mercy and generosity… they love each other deeply… 
• A community that loves one another like Jesus had loved them begins to form. 
• The Father… who was in Jesus… is now… in them…
• Hectic this… but it’s just like he said would happen…
• Where? Today’s passage…. John 14. 

And of course this is not just about the early church… 

• Through history it is recorded that when the gospel gets a hold of people, and the Holy Spirit is at work in people’s lives…
• The things that Jesus said his followers would do… begin to happen!
• Salvation preached.
• Signs and wonders occur
• Great acts of mercy, generosity and love. 
• People get treated with dignity… 

I’ll give you one example… and I am reading from a Christian History Institute article…

• In the 1730’s historians write of a religious revival that happened in the UK and especially in the USA called The Great Awakening… 
• Well known Christian preachers of the time included the Wesleys, Whitfield and Jonathan Edwards….
• And during the Great Awakening, Ministers urged people to repent of their sins and devote their lives to righteous living and pious activities. 
• Revivalists described this process as conversion, the “new birth” that Jesus proclaimed in John 3, and preaching this gospel became the basis for this movement. 

And during this awakening, miracles were reported to have happened as people came to Jesus and were touched by the Holy Spirit. 

• One such instance was the story of Mercy Wheeler who was confined to her bed from the age of eight to twenty-five after a childhood malarial fever (we have an article about what I am about to explain from Yale University Library on the screen).
• So Mercy’s body wasted away and she lost her voice entirely. Amazingly she proclaimed through her writing that though life is fragile and short, God is faithful even through illness. 
• In early 1743, when Wheeler was 25, her condition slowly began to improve. She could sit up in bed and move a bit with crutches, but was still too weak to walk unassisted. 

In May of that year, she asked a local Congregationalist minister, Hezekiah Lord to preach at her family’s house. 

• Wheeler became confident God would do something incredible, repeating the words of John 11:40—“If thou wouldst believe, thou shouldst see the glory of God”—as she waited for Lord to arrive. 
• When he came he preached on Isaiah 57:15—“to revive the spirit of the humble.” 
• As she listened Wheeler believed God meant these words especially for her. Affected by this conviction, she began to shake involuntarily. Attendees carried her back to her bed, convinced that she needed rest. 
• After a brief moment of doubt, Wheeler became even more confident that God was healing her. 
• She stood up. Her disconnected tendons and atrophied muscles filled with new strength, and she walked around the room several times. As astonished witnesses watched, Wheeler yelled, “Bless the Lord Jesus, who has healed me!” 
• She lived to the age of 100.

God the Father was in Jesus… And now his Spirit comes to live in us. In Jesus name we will do great works. 

I’ve shared here at Manly Life before a bit about my journey with the Holy Spirit

• Growing up never hearing it mentioned much…
• But then reading the bible and seeing that the scriptures are drenched in the language of the Holy Spirit. It got me interested… 
• Praying in tongues in South Africa
• Having quite an emotional experience of the Holy Spirit in London on the Alpha Course
• Being committed to leading churches that get the balance between Word and Spirit better.
• Old Wimber saying; “All word dry up, all spirit blow up… spirit and word grow up!

One of the reasons that we are a part of a healthy, growing, alive church is because we make room for the Holy Spirit…

• We are going to do that today at the end of the service. 
• I am sure we don’t always get the balance right…
• And you will always find people who want things to be more charismatic or less charismatic… 
• But good things happen when we create room for God to move…
• Testimonies from the worship night…
• So important if we are going to do ministry and live the Christian life…
• Breathe in and breathe out… 

Live in interesting times: Bit on the Asbury revival. Explain it… “Revive us by your love.”

• Some stayed around…. More joined… no one left… 50,000 came for a 2 weeks worship and prayer revival. 
• Lots of repentance, peace and sense of God’s presence. 

Some leaders identified 4 markers… generational thing… 

• Peace in anxiety
• Community in loneliness
• Gen led in distrust of authority
• Low tech in a high tech bombarded world…

But God seems to be on the move… the ministry of Jesus is continuing…

• Almost like what Jesus said in John 14… is true! And it happens because of the gift of the Holy Spirit who comes to live in us!
• I think it is in every generation… 
• The Great Awakening…
• The birth of the Pentecostal church in the Asuza Street revival that spread around the world.
• The Jesus movement in the 1970’s 
• The works of Jesus are continuing… just this last week we have had several people become Christians… 
• The Holy Spirit is moving in his church

Well what is it that Jesus promises in John 14? 

• We want to be thoroughly biblical when it comes to who the Holy Spirit is and Jesus promises will be the impact of the Holy Spirit being in us. 
• John 14 is not the whole story….
• In other places we learn other things about the Holy Spirit…
• Fruit (changes our character), Gifts (useful in church community to serve and bless each other), Assurance, Power, love…

But from todays passage…

• If you want to do the works of Jesus, be filled with the Spirit
• If you want a helper… because… well you need help… be filled with the Spirit. 
• If you want to keep the commands of Jesus to love one another, be filled with the Spirit
• If you don’t want to be left as an orphan in the world, be filled with the Spirit.
• If you want to know Jesus and have his life alive in you… any guesses?
• Be filled with the Spirit. 

OK, let me just finish with this from todays passage… 

So, the Spirit of Truth that Jesus promises will be an advocate who helps them

• So Jesus says to his disciples… and remember the context is he is leaving them
• And he is comforting them and giving them hope for the future. 
• Verse 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever, the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. 
• So the Spirit will be advocate who helps them. He will live with you and be in you…

The word that we translate here advocate is the Greek word Paraclete.

• Just to clarify… it is not parakete… Jesus is not promising to send them a bird
• A very helpful bird…
• He is sending the paraclete. 
• Verse 18 “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.”
• The word paraclete literally means a person summoned to one’s aid. It can refer to an advisor, a counselor, a legal advocate. 

Here is the point… the Holy Spirit will be to represent God to us, just as Jesus did when he walked amongst us. 

• We will not left alone…
• As Jesus is in the Father, now Jesus is coming to be in you!
• And I don’t know about you… but I need help. I need God to come to my aid and be present with me. 

I remember being on a school camp and a pretty bad accident happening to one of the kids… 

• And we were all pretty panicked because we were a long way from medical help 
• And we were just a bunch of kids.
• But our leader had a radio… and he was able to connect to help through the radio wave signal thingies.. 
• You can’t see radio waves, a bit like Jesus said in verse  17 about the world; “it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.”
• God has given us this gift… bit weird to the world… but pretty amazing, 
• And to us who know him, it is the power of God, ready to aid!

Ministry time

• How do you receive the Holy Spirit… often by an impartation (think John 20)
• Jesus breathes on them the Holy Spirit and they are filled with God… and they are changed. 
• Elsewhere by the laying on of hands…
• Comes with a deep assurance of the love and peace of God…

In this sermon, Pastor Tim explores Jesus explosive claim to be the way, the truth and the life to God. The sermon addresses what we do with the uniqueness of Jesus’ claims in a world of other religions and worldviews, and how we can regain confidence in the truth of Jesus by rediscovering the way of Jesus.

John 14:1-11

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. 2 My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. 4 You know the way to the place where I am going.”

5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”

6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”

8 Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”

9 Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work.11 Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves.

So we start chapter 14 and it is one of the most famous teachings in the John’s Gospel.

• Jesus says he is the way, the truth and the life.
• He says he is going away, in order to prepare a room for us in his Father’s house.
• And again he equates meeting himself with meeting God. “I am in the Father and the Father is in me.”

But the whole context of chapter 14 is Jesus comforting his disciples 

• I wonder how often your hearts are troubled?
• Jesus starts this section of the farewell discourse by saying “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me.”
• Now of course the obvious context to that is the disciples have just heard that Jesus is going to give his life up, much like a seed falling to the ground…
• It is through this act of self giving love, he explains that we will be rescued and eternal life will be given to his followers. 

But of course for us too, we can find encouragement from this passage as we travail through life with all of its ups and downs… 

• Life can seem like it is going along quite smoothly…
• Then tragedy or death can come… and what then provides comfort?
• In fact I know few people who have not suffered or experienced major challenges in their lives… particularly not if you’ve done a few laps on God’s green earth!
• And I guess I would say if you have never ever really been through the valley of death or major challenges…
• To prepare yourself with good character and strong faith… because it will come. 
• The only sure two things in life as they say are death and taxes… 

Some of you will know that 8 years ago Victoria (my wife) had a stroke… 

• Now I’ll let Victoria share her part of the story another time… and that is actually much more interesting. 
• Woke up paralysed… rush to hospital and operated on… wheeled her in… 
• Life returns back to normal quite quickly… but at the same time it profoundly changed us.
• For one thing in that waiting room, my trust in Jesus was tested… 
• Not in the, unless everything works out perfectly, Jesus has let me down… way
• But rather in the sense of “do not let your hearts be troubled.” It was the presence of God, the peace of Jesus and the gift of faith that sustained me. 

Corrie Ten Boom was a Dutch Christian who with her family helped many Jewish people escape from the Nazi’s and the holocaust in World War 2.

• Eventually she was caught and sent to a concentration camp
• And you can read about how she found and shared hope in God while in the concentration camp in her book The Hiding Place
• But she famously said; “When a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you don’t throw away the ticket and jump off. You sit still and trust the engineer.”
• In other words, it is in the hardest times in your life that you learn to trust in God.

Well, all through John’s gospel, Jesus invites us to trust him, to believe in him, to be comforted by him…

• And that’s a claim worth considering… 
• Because here is the one who is walking on water, raising his friend from the dead, healing the sick…
• And he is claiming that we should trust him. 
• He is the one in whom we find God, and he is saying “do not let your hearts be troubled.”

A couple of weeks ago, I did the swim down in Manly with a big northerly swell pushing into the point. 

• Picture… we swam all the way to Shelley and then as is our normal overly competitive way, we raced back…
• But when we got to the point, the biggest set of the day came through and we were caught on the inside…
• Under, up, under, up, under up… and I was done… heart rate was 200… I was out of breath…
• Moment of realization: No one coming to help or save… had to trust in myself…
• That is a scary prospect…
• How much more so if you have no one to rescue you in life who you can trust.
• Let me say this clearly: Do not let your life get in that position where you have not allowed Jesus to come and rescue you and help you!

So, verse 2, Jesus says; 

“My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.”

Now here is what is interesting in understanding this…

• When Jesus talks about his Father’s house, what is he talking about?
• Heaven? Well yes… the afterlife… well yes…
• But we can get more clarity than that by understanding what Jesus meant…

So, the other place that Jesus talks about his Father’s house is when he clears the temple in John chapter 2. Do you know that story?

• This is Jesus at his righteously indignant best!
• He goes to the temple in Jerusalem and finds people making money and he turns over their tables and says;
• “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!”
• The religious leaders ask for a sign to prove his authority and Jesus says “destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in 3 days.”

Now what do we make of all of this? Stick with me… 

• Well, the temple, which is what Jesus calls his Father’s house, was the place where the Jews believed heaven met earth… its where they met God.
• And that’s why Jesus alludes to his bodily death and resurrection being the new temple
• Because Jesus is where what?
• Jesus is where heaven meets earth. He is the new temple. Want to meet God, meet Jesus…

So Jesus makes the bold claim that he uniquely knows his Father’s house…. He knows and prepares it’s rooms.

• He knows that in his death and resurrection he will be preparing a place for you….
• Preparing a place in the future new heaven and new earth that we will take part in when God makes all things new!
• He boldly claims that in this place, he can uniquely take us to be where he alone will be!
• When our life on earth is done, we will be with him in heaven!
• So trust him, believe in him, confess him, call on him… and you will be saved!
• You will have a room in the Father’s house. 
• And that’s a pretty good reason no matter what you are gong through to be comforted. 

So verse 5 Thomas said to him, 

“Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Now for some, that may raise questions for us in relation to other religions, what about those who don’t know Jesus? Around the uniqueness of Christ?

• And we live in a world where we are more aware of competing philosophies and religions…
• And you may know people of other religions and they’re probably good people!
• And of course you know people who confidently believe in nothing… 
• So what are we to think of the claim that Jesus is the only way to God?

The late newspaper columnist Bernard Levin said this in relation to the point that Jesus used unequivocal language. He said;

• “I take it that a religion which claims to be following the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth must, even if only by a process of elimination, think that the other religions are, for all their holiness and worship, mistaken.”

Let me say two things…

Firstly, I think when it comes to other truth claims and religions, Jesus is still unique in what he claims…

• For instance, Mohammed claimed to be a prophet speaking on behalf of God… his followers would never worship him as God.
• And its not clear if Buddha believed in the existence of God as such, and considered himself more of a teacher than a saviour.
• Jesus says “I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me.”
• While other religious leaders pointed away from themselves to discover God, Jesus said “I and the Father are one.”
• In todays passage, to Philip’s question “show us the Father?”
• Jesus says “Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me.”

In Acts 4, the same John who wrote this gospel has just healed a crippled man outside the temple with Peter….

• Peter proclaimed Jesus as the “author of life” who had been crucified but was now resurrected and glorified. 
• They were arrested and put under huge pressure on trial… and asked “by what power” the crippled man had been healed.
• Peter (it says) “filled with the Holy Spirit” replied that it was “by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth” and that “salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.”

I like what the theologian NT Wright says about even Christians rejecting the uniqueness of Jesus. He says;

• “The trouble with this is that it doesn’t work. If you dethrone Jesus, you enthrone something or someone else instead. The belief that all religions are really the same sounds nice and democratic, though the study of religions shows that isn’t true.”
• He says; “What you are really saying if you claim that they’re all the same is that none of them are more than distant echoes, distorted images of reality.”

Now none of that means we need to belittle other religions or think they are all wrong all the time

• Right? We can still recognize there are elements of good teachings like charity and kindness in a lot of worldviews and religions…
• But we’d say, come meet Jesus, the one who claimed not to know about God
• But who claimed to be God. 
• And backed it up with signs and wonders, with sacrificial love and ultimately defeating death itself. 
• Come to the one true living God who has acted decisively within history to rescue the world… 
• Jesus is the central player in how God has revealed himself and acted….
• He is the way, he is the truth, and he is the life. 

One of the nice things about my kids getting a bit older is that the TV is now not permanently on ABC for Kids and Bluey… as great as Bluey is

• In fact Luca and sometimes even Hope love watching the cricket and rugby league with me…
• And when we get a chance to watch a show, Victoria always has two she calls for… CSI (the original, not the LA one…)
• And her other favourite is… anyone guess? 
• Undercover Boss… and usually there is every chance that during the great reveal, Victoria will tear up…
• Do you know Undercover Boss? The premise is that a high flying CEO of a large company goes undercover as an employee in one of their chains of restaurants locations, or they work in a store…
• And they always seem to wear a dodgy moustache and glasses… and that is enough to fool the other employees…
• But it is kind of cool, because the CEO gets to know the everyday workers and their problems and they roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty serving customers…

And what usually happens is that the employees, usually some hard done by person who would normally never get to meet the boss of the whole company…

• They get to talk about their problems they are facing in their lives and issues with the company at ground level…
• And then at the end of the show they realise that they have been hanging out not with some intern or fellow employee… 
• But the boss themselves… someone who can actually change their situations and do something about their problems…
• Dwelling among them has not been an authorized representative of the company, but the owner or founder, themselves.

When the disciples met Jesus, it wasn’t a supervisor or a guide 

• They met the boss. They met the Master of life walking and talking amongst them
• At the resurrection, when Jesus stood in their midst, Thomas proclaimed “My Lord and my God!”
• This isn’t a guide or a guru… this isn’t an authorized representative… 
• This was the author of life, showing them the way to the Father. 
• Amen?

Well let’s finish with this…

In a world where there are lots of religions and worldviews… and indeed many aggressively promoting secularism… 

• How do we reclaim Jesus unique truth in a mixed up, messed up world?
• Both for ourselves as we try and follow the one in whom we meet God…
• But also as we proclaim to the world “come meet this Jesus, the name by which we must be saved.”

Because I think there has been a loss of confidence in the good news both personally and publicly….

• And part of that is because the institution of the church has let so many people down….
• And partly I think because we live in a world that is aggressively evangelizing us in other directions… 
• My friend Ger sent me this advertisement he came across in Los Angeles the other day for a skin care brand called Sol De Janiero…
• “time to worship you.” Right?

Well I think it is simple… to regain our confidence…

• We need to rediscover the way of Jesus in order to proclaim the truth and life of Jesus.
• Amen?
• Let me say that again….
• We need to rediscover the way of Jesus in order to proclaim the truth and life of Jesus.

The early followers of Jesus were called a lot of things… some not very nice… bit like today really…

• But one of the names of the early Christians was “followers of the way.”
• By this they meant followers of the way Jesus lived amongst us while he was alive on earth.
• It is no great mystery that in John 13 Jesus had shown us what the way to the Father looked like…
• It involved humble servant leadership, lowering himself to wash the dirt off his disciples feet…
• The way of Jesus was what Lani spoke about last week… fulfilling the only commandment Jesus ever gave… 
• “love one another as I have loved you.”

You can read about the early Christian’s confidence in proclaiming the truth of Jesus…

• And it was done alongside continued miracles and an outpouring of the Holy Spirit…
• But it was also done as they followed the way and lived in humble love for one another and the world. 

One manuscript we have from around 130AD comes from a young Greek writer defending the Christians to a Roman Governor called Diognetus. Let me quote some bits;

“There is something extraordinary about their lives…. Like others, they marry and have children, but they do not expose them (that is a reference to the ancient practice of dumping unwanted children on the city garbage heap to die). They share their meals, but not their wives. They live in the flesh, but they are not governed by the desires of the flesh. They pass their days upon earth, but they are citizens of heaven. Obedient to the laws, they yet live on a level that transcends the law. Christians love all men, but all men persecute them… They live in poverty, but enrich many; they are totally destitute, but possess an abundance of everything… A blessing is their answer to abuse, deference their response to insult… Christians love those who hate them…”

Friends, as we discover the way of Jesus… we can confidently believe in him and proclaim him as the truth and the life!