RESURRECTION PEOPLE: A People of Principle (II Timothy 3:10-4:8) Major Lindsay Rowe
INTRODUCTION
This morning I present the third in a five sermon series entitled "Resurrection People." We have said that the resurrection is the foundation of our faith and that too often we let go of that central theme when Easter is past and don't revisit it until the following year.
We have concluded that we are indeed a resurrection people. But what do resurrection people look like? How do they behave? What distinguishes them from other people?
In our first sermon we concluded that resurrection people are people of power, they have the dynamic power of the Holy Spirit resident within them. The Holy Spirit is like a spiritual dynamo, producing power to witness and power for victorious Christian living.
In our second sermon we observed that resurrection people are people of purpose. We acknowledged that God not only has a macroscopic plan that encompasses all of time and the whole universe, but that his plan in so inclusive as to feature you and me in an integral role. You have a part to play in God's great plan for the ages. That reality brings us a great deal of affirmation and self worth but it should also cause us to take a serious look at where we are in life and what we have done for the cause of Christ.
Are we walking in the purposes of God for our lives? Can you state your God-given mission clearly and succinctly? If you can't please come and see me, we have some tools available and would love to help you discover your spiritual gifts and the ministry opportunities available to you here at Peterborough Temple.
This morning I'd like to suggest to you that resurrection people are people of principle. Furthermore, I submit to you that the principles by which we are to govern our lives are clearly stated in the Bible. I have spent a great deal of time studying the bible through the years. In the past ten years a great deal of that time has been spent in academic circles. I have dissected and examined what the ancient scholars taught and I have desperately tried to be objective as well as critical of what modern scholars are trying to say.
The more I listen the more I am convicted that scholars may very well be out of their league when it comes to the Bible. Is it possible that God would entrust his Word to a handful of academics who can't even agree on what approach they should take to reading and discussing it much less on what it is actually teaching and demanding of us as disciples of Jesus? Were those first recorders of the Word academics? I think they were intelligent. I think the hand of God also guided them as they wrote. But what they wrote about was not some theory or supposition. They wrote about their own experience with the Living God. Listen to Peter on this matter, "We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty" (II Peter 1:16).
The bible is God's gift to ordinary people, written by ordinary people who had an extraordinary encounter and experience with God, the same kind of extraordinary experience you and I can have with that same God.
It is extraordinary because it is highly personal and individualistic. God comes to me in an entirely different way than he comes to you because our personality is different and our mission is different. God's purpose in giving us the Word is practical, not academic.
It is a book for you and me, not the academics. It is not merely a book about how Jesus came to earth and how he changed the lives of all those who encountered and accepted him. That's just the past tense of the bible. The bible is alive, interactive. It is about how God still comes to his people through his Son Jesus Christ. He comes where we are and he offers us the life we hunger after.
The bible is a practical handbook for Christian living, it is not an academic textbook. That does not mean it cannot withstand scholarly scrutiny or debate, or that it is not an intelligent document. It means that its primary purpose is practical not academic and that its principles for power living are accessible to the ordinary person, any person who will commit to the author of the book and allow him to interpret the Word for them as they read and meditate on it.
Resurrection people are people who understand this and who commit themselves to principlizing the Word of God, to discovering the eternal principles behind the narratives and the teaching taking place there. Once discovered these principles become guideposts for their lives, they provide direction through the moral maze that is life in the twentieth century and they become the foundation of a victorious Christian life.
There are many such principles that we could highlight this morning. I've chosen just two and I want to stay close to those first resurrection people and their experience as we consider them.
Resurrection people are people of principle. Two obvious principles that directed all that the disciples of Jesus did after his resurrection are the World for God and the Word for me.
THE WORLD FOR GOD
The great commission (Matthew 28:18-20) was more than the final words of Jesus to his disciples, it was to be the polar star of their mission. It was the great commission not only because of the magnitude of the task, but also because of the nobility of the task.
We are at our best, we are closest to God's heart, and we come closest to fulfilling our God-given mission when we are taking God to the world. This is our most noble endeavor. Listen again to that great commission: "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." (Matt.28:18-20; Mark 16:15).
My dear people, that was not just God's mission to the eleven disciples, this is one of those eternal principles of the church. This is the great commission principle.
You can best identify a principle and distinguish it from an isolated reference by picking up a paperback version of Cruden's Concordance at any Christian book store, Jim, over at Emaeus would be glad to help you, and checking where and in what context a particular significant word appears.
For example the word "world." Matthew 13:39 tells us that "the field is the world." In Matthew 24:14 Jesus predicts the success and faithfulness of the disciples and of you and me: "And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come." In John 9:5 Jesus says, I am the Light of the world" he's saying I belong to the world, take me to them. In fact John talks more about Jesus and his world mission than any other gospel writer. Of the 186 times the Greek word cosmos appears in the N.T. 78 of them are in John.
Mark renders the great commission, "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation" (Mark 16:15). Taking Christ to the world is a biblical principle. That word "cosmos" primarily means the whole of God's created world. It is primarily geographical in nature but it is also spiritual in nature because the word is often used to refer to all those who are outside of God, the world apart from God.
The principle, "the world for God" then is every Christian's mission. The field is not necessarily Africa, India, or some other far off country. We have too quickly shrugged off the Great Commission and dismissed it as someone else's grandiose calling simply because we have not sensed any great divine urge to leave home and go to Africa.
The field is the world but the world is not merely the globe. The field is any part of the world where men and women, boys and girls, are outside of Christ. The primary principle of our lives ought to be that world for God. We must work out the implications of that for our own lives and seek the mind of God on exactly how we are to apply this principle in our everyday lives.
How can I help reach the world for God? How can I help make the kingdoms of this world the kingdoms of our God (Rev 11:15)? Well, perhaps it would help if we understood what it is we are trying to win for God?
There is a sense in which we all have a kingdom isn't there? There is a small part of the world that we have the right and the privilege to call "our world," our kingdom. In that kingdom we have the right to make choices and our choices determine what happens. If you have no say over anything you are something less than a person.
The greatest form of tyranny is that which takes away my right to make certain choices in my life. Look into the hollow faces and the empty eyes of many of our street people and you will see that injustice. The loss of dignity that comes with having few, if any, choices left in life.
The Great Commission to which those first disciples committed themselves calls us to first of all take that kingdom that is ours, that kingdom within us, where we have the right to make choices and decisions, and give that to God. That way our kingdom becomes the kingdom of God. Then we witness to the people who are a part of our world of relationships, our family, friends, work mates, and encourage them to take their little kingdom and give it to God. Then make sure that your Sunday school class understands the principle and that they are committed to it.
You see, Jesus said, "the kingdom of God is within you," and it is, when does that happen? When you make your kingdom the kingdom of God by giving it to him. The kingdom of God is within us and it can be within all those who surrender themselves to him. The field is all around us.
There is a field ripe unto harvest just next door in our Family Services Department. The potential harvest gathers in our lobby for coffee every morning. They don't smell nice, they don't look nice, they don't sound nice, but they are the people for whom Christ died and they too have a kingdom they can give to God and God has a kingdom he wants to give to them. They don't want you to preach to them, but can you love them? Can you accept them? Can you be kind to them? They are a part of the world. "The world for God" means them too.
THE WORD FOR ME
Some books are well worth selling your shirt to buy. Dallas Willard's The Divine Conspiracy is definitely one of those books. At $33.95 you may very well have to sell your shirt to get one, but it would still be a wise investment. In the book he tells of a pilot who was practicing high-speed maneuvers in a jet fighter. She turned the controls to what she thought was a steep ascent-and flew straight into the ground. She was unaware that she had been flying upside down.
I've sat through several semesters of philosophy and psychology classes and listened as the Prof argued for the need to think and act morally in all our ways. I've also participated in the debate about what is evil and where it could possibly have come from and what is good and what its source could possibly be. Those debates and discussions were all circular in nature, it seemed, and when they were over we left convinced of a need but with few resources for meeting
the need. There was an obvious need to be good, to be moral, but
there was no knowledge base to which I was referred to show me how to be good, how to be moral.
In math I was taught that 3 x 7 = 21 and if I said otherwise I was marked wrong. In English classes I was taught to follow grammatical rules. In the greater lessons of life, I was told there really is no right or wrong, there is only what is right and what is wrong for you. No moral knowledge to guide me as I choose what is right and what is wrong? Are you surprised then that a young student who survived the shootings in Colorado comments, "I guess what we need is morals." To what knowledge base do we refer her? Who or what do we hold up as the standard?
I asked the philosophy Prof, "sir, how could I possibly fail this course? How do you grade
papers?" "On the construction of your argument," was the reply. So then content is irrelevant, it only matters that you argue well. Well, some of those well constructed but erroneous arguments are the stuff that makes people do tragic things because after all, it got me a good grade and others agreed with me so it must be a good idea.
Ideas are powerful things. Good ideas have positive potential. Bad ideas are the seeds of deadly deeds.
Those first resurrection people
would not agree with my Prof's approach to life. As they applied
"the world for God" principle, and took the message to the lost, they also embraced "the Word for me" principle as the standard for their own life and conduct. The bible became their lifeline, their link with God as they embarked on a "rescue the perishing" mission. They continually found God in his Word. Having found him, they not only discovered the message they were to preach to their contemporaries, they also found the meaning of their own lives, the purposes of God for their existence and the power of God to fulfill their mission.
Take a moment to read Peter's sermon on the Day of Pentecost. He begins in verse 14 of Acts 2 by clarifying their mission. "We are not drunk," he says, "what you are seeing in the fulfillment of scripture." Then he quotes extensively from Joel 2, then Psalm 16 and Psalm 110. He took what the scriptures said, what Jesus taught, and all that happened to Jesus, and interpreted it in the light of what was going on for the people standing before him. In other words, he contextualized the Word for them.
It is so important that we learn to build bridges between the Word of God and our own context. What the young lady in Colorado was missing is available in the bible. You see the bible is active and interactive. It is alive and it speaks eloquently to our times, not just this generation, but to us as individuals. How can it do that? How can it be so personal? Because the author of the book still lives, he still interprets his own writing, and he is available to every diligent reader.
The moral knowledge we need to direct life in the closing days of the twentieth century and the opening days of a new century are already at our disposal, we have it at our fingertips. It is not exclusive it is wonderfully inclusive, for it is open to all. It has stood the test of time and it is still the best standard to live by.
There is a moral standard and there is a moral example. The standard is the bible and Jesus is living evidence that the standard is attainable.
CONCLUSION
I challenge you to make the kingdom in your heart the kingdom of God, give him your world. Then share the good news with those in your world of relationships. Make sure as you do that you are living your life and presenting your testimony on the basis of the Word of God. "The world for God" may this principle be our battle cry, "The Word for me" may this principle be our passion and may it govern our lifestyle.
We are resurrection people. Resurrection people are
people of principle. The Word is the source of the principles by
which we govern our lives.
Sources:
The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard
Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament Balz and Schneider
The NIV Application Commentary Acts of the Apostles Zondervan
"If Paul got organized to reach his objectives, so can you" by Word Biblical Commentary Acts