The mp3 of this talk can be downloaded here
This sermon was preached at Bethany City Church as a part of a series titled 'extreme church'.
Extreme Church – The Mandate for the Church
Acts 1v1-8
Introduction to Extreme Church
You can tell something about people by looking at their pets. You can tell a lot more by looking at their friends. The same is true of the Christian message, and of Jesus. People form a view of Jesus by looking at his friends...us. What do they see?
I am sure that anyone associated with Bethany City Church, from the loosest association to the strongest, most committed and involved ties, want this church to be a thriving effective church. My guess is, even if you are visiting for the first time today, and it is the first time you have set your feet in the door – any church door, what you want to see is a community of people committed to one another where exciting things are happening, where people are being helped and lives being changed. Because that is ultimately the sort of lives we all want to have. But there are other reasons why we want to be that kind of church.
Jesus, our friend and leader has a mission for us, a mandate for the church. And how we are fulfilling that mandate shows people something about Jesus.
The difficulty is, we live in a culture that has fallen in love with what one Christian writer (J. I. Packer) called ‘hot-tub religion’.
A few years ago Esther and I met up with Esther’s family for a week in Devon. It was February half term and cold. But we had a lovely time largely due to good company, good food, and the hot tub. There is something very relaxing and liberating, laying back in the warm bubbles with a glass of wine, steam off the water, looking up at the stars and trying not to think about the walk back to the cottage from the end of the garden. Hot tubs are designed to take all your stresses and worries away, lose yourself in the bubbles and feel good factor and not really have to engage with what is happening outside the Hot tub.
Hot tub religion is the same and it is strangling the church. What this country, what this CITY needs is not hot tub Christianity, not something aimed to make us feel comfortable, sheltered and safe. What this City needs is for Christians to take Jesus at his word, for us to be the people Jesus created us to be. What this City needs is for us to hear Jesus’ mandate to the church and act. It is what we are for.
So, between now and the Summer we are going to be taking a walk through the exciting, risky, edgy, fruitful and foundational days of the early church, the church that took Jesus words, and inspired by his Spirit laid the foundations of the church that continues to grow today. We will be walking through the book of Acts and asking the question what did it look like for them, and therefore us to be ‘Extreme Church’.
And we are going to be being deadly serious with God and with one another about what it means for us to be ‘Extreme Church’ in the 21st Century, in fact the only way to do church.
Like all extreme sports, Extreme church will mean Spiritual exercise and activity, calculated risk, selflessness, commitment to the cause whatever the cost.
So let’s start this week by considering the mandate that Jesus gave to this first community, and to us.
The Mandate for the church
Please read Acts 1v1-8
The book of Acts is the follow-up to Luke’s gospel. Written by Luke, as 1v1 suggests, it picks up where Luke’s gospel finishes and shows us the impact the death and resurrection of Jesus had on the first Century church. This small bunch of Jesus followers were not powerful and influential people in Jerusalem. They didn’t have access into the politics of the city in order to be able to start a world religion in this small, but important city. In fact, initially, after Jesus death they were running scared. But the time they spent with Jesus after his resurrection has changed them and influenced them.
'During the forty days after his crucifixion, he appeared to the apostles from time to time and proved to them in many ways that he was actually alive' 1v3
They spent lots of time with Jesus, he taught them, explained what had happened, gave them proof of his resurrection time and again. In fact, he seems to have spent his time teaching this group of Christians and future church leaders and apostles 3 things.
Firstly, he spent time proving to them he actually was alive.
We thought about this on Easter Sunday, but if you want to get to the heart of the message of Jesus, this is where you end up. At the heart of the message of Jesus is not logic, although it is logical. At the heart of the message of Jesus is not politics and social change, although it leads to important political principles and social change.
At the heart of the person and message of Jesus is a man who died, then was raised to life. A super-miracle that defeated death, defeated sin that should separate us from God and saw a man who had physically died, whose heart had stopped beating and who had bled out, who was certified dead by the experts and who then walked, talked, ate and appeared to hundreds of people proving his death. If anything is going to enable people to do extreme things, then this is it!
But we are also told that Jesus spent these days after his resurrection talking to his disciples about the Kingdom of God. This had been Jesus topic of conversation for the last 3 years, and it continued right up to the end of Jesus physical life and ministry on earth. Why? Because it is what Jesus was about – building a community of people who belong to God, living under his rule and leadership, worshipping him. A community that is worth everything and will last forever. But it took this bunch of Christians a little while to get hold of the idea, as we shall see.
The third thing we are told Jesus spent his time teaching the disciples is a theme which is so important for our understanding the book of Acts. Jesus taught about the coming of the Holy Spirit.
What Jesus taught them was not new, but has so often been mis-understood. Jesus was teaching about the coming of someone who had been expected, and who would bring phenomenal change to the church.
A read of Ezekiel 37v1-14 shows just one example of the expectation and anticipation that came with speaking about the coming of the Holy Spirit. And so in Acts 1v4-5 we read something very significant. It is about to happen. God is about to break into history in a new way which will change the world. He is about to baptise his people with the Holy Spirit. They are about to become a community that is powered, motivated and inspired by God himself, by his presence with them by his Holy Spirit.
But you and I are, in some senses no different than this first bunch of Christians, as we will see over the coming weeks.
Now there was something particular about the apostles, those who saw and met with the raised Jesus. That can never be repeated. His instructions for them were not necessarily for us. The coming of the Holy Spirit for the first time to fill his church only happened the once.
But in another sense these words are for us. There is a continuity between them and us, because we are in the same community as them, founded on the same principles of the proof of the resurrected Jesus Christ, a community transformed by the work of the Holy Spirit because the people are transformed by the Holy Spirit. The person of Jesus is still at the very heart of what we are about. This is the real deal, the important thing we must never get away from. We live and exist because of an occurrence in history that stands out in our culture, as in the first century as unbelievable. The death and resurrection of Christ.
We can talk about this our own Christian community in lots of ways. A family, a community geared to help the lost, the suffering. Indeed, we speak of ourselves as
‘A community who aim to live and live like Jesus and get the people of Sunderland into heaven’.
The only reason we are this is because of the politically incorrect, controversial, even crazy belief that Jesus died for a world who couldn’t save itself and then was raised to life after, defeating death.
And it is this that God grows his Kingdom.
A Growing Kingdom
The disciples got the wrong idea about the Kingdom.
The early apostles made 3 mistakes. 3 mistakes we would never make, simply because we look back on 2000 years of church history. Or would we?
The Kingdom of God, that Jesus came to build was not political or territorial, it was not nationalistic and was not imminent. And these are still issues that tear the middle-east apart.
Read Acts 1v6
Even after 3 years of Jesus teaching, having seen his death and resurrection they had the wrong idea. The Kingdom of God was not about politics and territory. The Jews of the day were living under Roman rule and only free to express their faith under Roman authority. But when they read their Old Testaments they read of a Messiah who would come, a great leader and king, a warrior from God who had come to free his people and restore the great nation of Israel to her rightful place and homeland. Surely, this man Jesus was the one. He had begun by defeating death!
So, “Lord, are you going to free Israel now and restore our Kingdom?”
And they were convinced of 2 other things. Firstly that the Kingdom Jesus had spoken of, was for people like them. It was for the Jewish nation because that was who the promise had been made to. And the coming of the Kingdom, free from all other rule was imminent. “Lord, when are you going to do it?”
Read acts 1v7-8
The Kingdom of God is not a political entity. It is not about territory. It grows not through force, but be people telling other people about the death and resurrection of Jesus. It transforms by changing hearts and therefore lives, and therefore communities. This is why Christians should be involved in politics – not because the gospel itself is political, but because it is about transforming and changing lives. And it changes lives by the same principles that Jesus changed the world – sacrifice and love.
It is not about territory. It is not about a particular area or region.
In fact, Jesus is clear about the opposite. It is for all people. Jesus tells them that you will “tell people about me, everywhere...throughout Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the ends of the earth.”
The mandate to the church is to grow the Kingdom, in all places and times.
And this Kingdom was not imminent, in the sense that Jesus wasn’t about to wrap up history and destroy everyone except his people. The Kingdom is about changed hearts and lives that mean the Kingdom grows and exists covertly through all other powers and authorities. History attests to that time and time again.
The Kingdom of God that the book of Acts speaks of the growth of is simply this. It is a community of people who have attested to the grace of Jesus Christ in their lives, who know that his resurrection is real and changes everything. And it does change everything. It transforms lives as people live under God’s rule, submitting to his authority, worshipping him, doing all it can to grow this Kingdom to the ends of the earth. It is an extreme church, striving to live not in a hot tub, but finding itself walking on hot coals.
I don’t know if you have ever done that. I had a friend in London who loved extreme sports – and on one occasions he walked on hot coals. The key, apparently, is to keep moving!
And that is what God’s Spirit, the key to this movement of his people does.
An Extreme church means a Spirit filled Church.
Read v8 again.
‘When the Holy Spirit comes on you, you will receive power’
Power for what? And this is the key question that has led to controversy and division in the church, and even in this city over recent years.
‘...you will receive power and will tell people everywhere about me.’
The decisive incident in the life of the early church is what we are considering next week. What is it that enables the early disciples to not get hung up on politics and territory, to see the church as for every community, for every nation and language, and to keep going until Jesus returns? The Spirit of power which came upon the church that last Pentecost and has been at work ever since, right down to today. To you and I.
We need to ask ourselves, today. Hot-tub religion or hot coals extreme church?
The mandate to you and I, to the church in the 21st Century is clear because it is the same.
‘When the Holy Spirit comes upon you, you will receive power and will tell people about me everywhere – in Jerusalem, in Judea, In Samaria and the ends of the earth.’
Dry bones will come to life, ears here and respond. A community that is unashamed of the death and resurrection of Christ, and devoted to building the Kingdom of God, not its own understanding of what that Kingdom should look like in its own culture.
The Book of acts records the gospel going to Jerusalem, taken y men and women who look a little bit like they are walking on coals. Then the church gets a little bit settled so God sends persecution to shake up the church again. So the gospel goes to Judea and Samaria. And then, in we see Paul in Rome, we read letters sent to churches telling them of plans to go to Spain. Soon the gospel is heading North throughout Turkey, East towards Asia and India, West throughout Europe, South into North Africa and beyond. And through the next 100 decades it continues to grow. A church walking on hot coals.
The mandate is very clear.
‘God raised Jesus up and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.’ Phil 2v9-11
Read Acts 1v9-11
Jesus had no other plan. This was it.
Sunderland needs churches who are committed to this mandate. Sunderland needs extreme church.
Are we searching for hot-tub religion or prepared to walk on hot-coals for the sake of the Kingdom?
How serious are you in taking the message of the death and resurrection of Jesus to all people everywhere? (you have to start somewhere)
Have you thrown your lot in with this, or some other Christian community and said – yes, I am up for this. Count me in and count on me!
This is the sort of church the world needs, and this is the sort of church Jesus had in mind