John 14: 15-21
- Series on John’s vision for the church
- 2 weeks ago – Hearing and recognizing God’s voice
- Last week – first part of John 14 – the way , the truth, the life
- This week seems pretty straightforward –
- there’s teaching here on the Holy Spirit, which makes sense seeing as we’re coming up to Pentecost
- There’s teaching here on the Trinity, which also makes sense with Trinity Sunday coming up the week after
- We can draw a nice, neat diagram based on verse 20: “I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.”
- Simple, neat, tidy. Done?
- Scripture is the living Word. God-breathed. You might read a short passage of scripture like this a dozen times, but God will have something new to teach you
- Something that will reshape your understanding of God, of your faith, of yourself.
- Scripture got me again this week.
- Listen to verse 19 again. “19 Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but they will see you. Because you live, I also will live. “
- Wait, that’s not right!
- That’s how we so often see things, isn’t it? That the world can’t see Jesus, but they can see us? That we continue the work that Jesus began? We even sing it “For the love to go on, we must make it our song, you and I be the singers.”
- All of the responsibility is on us. We need to make this work, people!
- But that’s not what the verse says. Let’s open our eyes and read it again: “19 Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live.”
- This is very, very different. Because I live, you also will live. Because Jesus lives, we also will live. This is radically different. All of a sudden the responsibility is no longer on us, carried on our backs, but on Jesus, carried on his shoulders.
- This is good news! This is really good news. I read this verse, over and over again I read it, and I felt a profound sense of relief. Why is that, do you think? Why was it such a relief?
- Well, when I was about Oliver and Jono’s age, I used to go down to visit my dad in his office at the engineering firm that he worked for in Dunedin. I loved it. There were all the sights and sounds and smells of a busy workshop, and most of all there was my dad. My dad with his oversized sideburns, receding hairline, and horn-rimmed glasses. My dad with the sign hanging on the wall behind his desk that read “I have a very responsible position around here: Whenever something goes wrong, I’m responsible.”
- When things are going well, responsibility is actually pretty great. You can take pride in your achievements. You can help people. You have a sense of purpose. You are, well, responsible.
- And, for most of the last 300 years or so, the church has done a pretty great job of playing a responsible role in society. And we brought the Gospel to new peoples all around the world. And we established Christian colonies, free from extremes of poverty and inequality. And we built beautiful church buildings to worship God and to show him how well we’ve been doing with the responsibility that He granted us as his people here on earth.
- And, all things considered, we really did do well. Things have been good.
- I do not need to tell you that the good times did not last.
- And all of a sudden, responsibility is not the blessing that it once seemed.
- As the church has declined in the last two or three generations we have become disheartened and dismayed, because we feel responsible.
- As you know, I spent my two years as a ministry intern in Rotorua, shared between St. Johns in the City, and Trinity in Ngongotaha.
- When I arrived, Ngongotaha was in a pretty desparate state. There were fewer than a dozen people regularly attending worship in a place that could seat over 100. Worst of all, they blamed the people who had stopped coming, they blamed each other and they blamed themselves. They felt utterly responsible.
- There were moments of joy, and people that I came to love, but it was not easy for anyone involved.
- In spite of it all, they were determined to keep going at any cost. At a session meeting one evening the elders told me that if the doors closed on that church, then the doors closed on God’s kingdom in Ngongotaha. What a heavy burden to carry!
- When they sang those words “For the love to go on, we must make it our song” they weren’t just singing it, that was their reality.
- It really seemed that there would be no way out without broken hearts.
- In the car on the way to church one Sunday morning I was worrying about this out loud to Andrea. Very prayerfully, of course. I didn’t see any way out of the predicament that this little congregation was in and I felt responsible. Then we pulled up into the car park and this happened <Ngongotaha rainbow photo>
- You couldn’t have a more perfect promise that God had us all in his mighty hands. It kept me going, and it gave the congregation courage and hope.
- I’d love to tell you that things turned around, and the congregation grew, and everyone lived happily ever after, but I can’t. That little congregation is no more.
- But something quite wonderful did change. The sense of responsibility shifted, and they began to trust more in God, and because they weren’t beating themselves up anymore they began to trust themselves too.
- Right at the end of my internship the parish voted unanimously to close as a parish and join forces with St. Johns. A group of truly wonderful people who had been stuck at the bottom of a pit of unachievable responsibilities had been set free and given a new lease on life and faith.
- Now please don’t imagine that I see the decline and death of the church as the inevitable outcome of the times that we live in. Nothing could be further from the truth! I’m excited about things that are happening in our church. Rhythm Kids is off to a great start. The Girls and Boys Brigades are growing. We’ve baptized Edwin into our midst and there’s more to come. But none of these things have we done in our own strength. Just like that rainbow over Trinity Ngongotaha, God is flying His rainbow over our church here in Timaru. The Holy Spirit is at work, bringing us opportunity and life.
- Our job is not to carry the whole thing on our own backs, but to recognize God’s voice speaking among us and to join in the way, the truth, the life that Jesus brings among us purely, sovereignly, responsibly of his own will.
- This, I believe is John’s vision for the church. To reassure us that, through the Holy Spirit, Jesus is at work in our lives, and in His church. Through his grace and mercy and pure generosity we get to join in the divine dance that breathes life into all of creation, but it’s not all up to us.
- And so we can look forward to Pentecost because Jesus is sending us help
- And we can celebrate the Trinity because we don’t have to do it on our own but we’re loved by Jesus and he is in the Father and we are in him, and he is in us.
- Because I live, you also will live.
- This is Good News.
