Holy Spirit - Poured Out to Guide the Church

In Exodus 33:1-17, we have what I would consider one of the rawest conversations between God and Moses. Stop and read this passage and reflect on the give and take between Moses and God. How is their relationship described? What is the main focus of their conversation? Does this look like your relationship with God? I try to hold this passage as an image of what I want my relationship with God to look like. The more perfect image of what our relationship with God should look like is Jesus Christ. I hold this image because of Moses’ focus on the need for God’s presence. Spend your week reflecting on this conversation with our church in mind. What do we strive for most as a church?

God’s presence through the Holy Spirit is poured out on the church to give us peace during trials, assurance during times of doubt, and guidance for where we need to carry God’s mission. Early in ministry I was confronted with a statement that was continued to work on me for 15 years, “God’s church doesn’t have a mission. God’s mission has a church.” The focus of this statement is on God’s mission to redeem his broken creation and he has called the church into that mission. The subtle shift in focus brings into view that God is going to move to bring about his mission and the church needs to see the work God is doing and move to join him. 

What is God’s mission that the church is called into? In the “Great Commission” (Matt 28:16-20), Jesus sends out his disciples to make other disciples. They are to go to every person on the planet and invite them to walk in the way of Jesus. When he says, “make disciples of all nations,” he is saying that there is no one who is unworthy to be invited to walk in the way of Jesus. When they are baptized into the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, they receive the same status as Children of God as everyone else and are called to the same way of life as everyone who has dedicated their life to walking in the way of Jesus. Therefore, those who are baptized with the Spirit have a higher calling in how they are to live, not as a little bit better than the world, but on a whole other plane. The church is called to live out God’s good creation amongst the broken creation. We are called to live as a light to the nations (Matt 5:14-16), living within the nations. There are some in Christianity who have twisted this Great Commission into a call to legislate the teachings of Jesus to rule a nation separating the call to follow Jesus’ teachings from the call to walk with him. When this happens, those Christians pick and choose the teachings of Jesus that work for nation and ignore the ones that do not work. This has been taking place in the Western world for 1700 years and is detrimental to God’s call for the church to live as a light, set apart from the nations. Jesus formed a visible and identifiable community called to live in contrast to society. He lays out the vision for this community in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5–7; Lk. 6:17–46). 

Looking at the whole teaching of Scripture, Leonard Allen says, “God’s mission is to make all things new, to offer people reconciliation (both to the self and to their enemies), and to fashion creation as a place for human flourishing (a place of shalom). Through the Spirit we are enabled to participate in this cosmic missional project” (Poured Out: The Spirit of God Empowering the Mission of God, p. 97). 

God’s Church has a mission, and the Spirit guides us in that mission. When Jesus ascended back to the Father, he told the disciples to wait for the Spirit (Acts 1:4) and promised that they “will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you,” said the risen Jesus, “and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). The rest of Acts is one of the Spirit’s moving and the church following. Sometimes, this meant they had to wait. Other times, they had to keep up. But they always had to be ready, listening and looking. This echoes the end of Exodus (40:36-38). When God moved, Israel moved. When God stayed, Israel stayed. 

Why is it so hard to wait for the movement of the Spirit to lead us? 

In what ways do we struggle with listening and looking?

Pray for us as a church and for our leadership that we will be people who look and listen for the Spirit’s guidance. 

Holy Spirit - Poured Out for the Church

The Holy Spirit is poured out for the whole church. We each have a part to play in this. The church, especially in America, has transitioned into an organization that people join to benefit from. The consumer mindset of our society draws us into a focus where we look for the best worship style that fits our needs, dynamic preaching that is engaging and leaves you feeling good, and programs for whatever life stages we happen to be in. We have personalized a walk with God in such a way that it has become overtly individualistic. If a church does not meet my needs, I simply find another one. If I don’t like what the preacher says, I’ll find a preacher who doesn’t step on my toes. If I don’t like the worship style, there are other options. Walking with Jesus is always personal, but it is never individual. 

Take some time to sit and read 1 Corinthians 12-14 and focus on what Paul says about the Spirit’s work in the church. Don’t get too distracted by the discussion on tongue speaking but focus on what Paul says is most important about the gifts God has given us. Every gift of the Spirit is given for the common good and building up of the church (12:7 and 14:12). The Spirit guides us into greater unity as each person builds the other up (12:12-31). The Spirit guides us into greater unity and deeper expressions of love (13:1-14:1). When all things in this current life pass away the need for Spiritual gifts will no longer be needed because the presence of God and our life with him will be our full reality. When all of that comes to fullness, only one thing will remain: love. 

God, who is love, gave the full expression of himself in the life and death of Jesus. That same God, who is love, now lives in you, and wants to transform you into the embodiment of that love for the building up of the Church and for the world to know the love of God. 

For your reflection as you prepare to hear a word from God on Sunday:

• Ask God to reveal to you who you struggle with the most to love. Ask for forgiveness and that God put you in situations to build bridges of love rather than walls of hostility. 

• What gifts do you have that are not being shared to build up the church?

• Does our church structure welcome the use of people’s God-given gifts or does it create space for consumers? How can we adjust to better be a community of love where all people’s gifts are valued?

• What will you commit to do to help cultivate a community where love can unite us across the chasms where the world wishes to divide us?   

Holy Spirit - Guided by Spirit

God desires to be in relationship with you. So much so that he paved the way to relationship through great personal sacrifice in Jesus. Even more so, he chooses to make his dwelling inside of us through the Holy Spirit. Where is God? Inside you, if you’ll welcome him. God, the community of love between the Father, Son, and Spirit, makes a choice of where to reside. The God who was active together before creation began and is the lifeforce of all creation, and of all new creation, chooses to take up residence in you. Are you open to that? Are you worthy? No! But God has made you worthy. So, the Holy Spirit is poured out on ALL people. We do not get to choose who God pours his Spirit out on.

The Holy Spirit, if you will listen, speaks into your life to bring you into transformation into the image of God for the world. I’ve often wondered why I’ve struggled to make time to sit in the presence of God to listen. Why am I comfortable studying the Bible, digging into the hard questions of Bible knowledge, but I struggle to sit with Scripture with my ears open, ready to hear a word from God that I need to hear? If I am honest with myself, and I hope you’re wrestling with this question as well, I don’t want to change. A relationship with God requires change. This change in you is not your own work, as if you can obtain salvation. This change is one of submission. The Holy Spirit’s work in your life brings about noticeable change in how you live, act towards others, your ability to be at peace, have joy, and show love. Most of us like being angry and having disdain for “those people,” whoever they are. The Holy Spirit calls you into deeper acts of love and reveals where the love of God needs to increase in your life.

Throughout this series, I’m really pushing us to wrestle with two major questions: Are you open to the Spirit? Will you develop disciplines (habits, rhythms) in your life to listen to the Spirit? 

I am on vacation this week. We are finally making a trip out to Texas with our daughter after a few cancelled attempts this last year. Alex Franklin will preach while I am gone. Pray for him as he listens to what God needs him to share and as he prepares. He is focusing on the balance between listening to the Holy Spirit in our lives and the Bible guiding our lives. Here are a few questions to wrestle with as you prepare to hear a word this Sunday:

• One fear we have in listening to the Spirit is that we might be just hearing our own voice and calling it the Spirit. This is a caution we all need to keep in mind. At the same time, when we read Scripture without an ear open to the Spirit’s guidance, how do we know that we aren’t simply reading our own bias into Scripture? 

• The first followers of Jesus didn’t have the New Testament as we have it today. They had the Old Testament, the teachings of Jesus, and the Apostle’s teachings. The early church saw that it was essential that the Gentile followers of Jesus knew the Old Testament. Old Testament references and imagery is found all over the New Testament letters. What role did the Holy Spirit play in the lives of the early followers of Jesus? (BTW, the New Testament, as we have it, wasn’t agreed upon till 300 years after Jesus). 

• If you couldn’t have access to Scripture and the only teaching of Jesus you could remember was, “Love God. Love others.” Could you sit in God’s presence daily and allow the Spirit to guide you into who God needs you to be with just that? 

Holy Spirit - Poured Out for Each of Us

One of my favorite things to do as a kid was open up the news paper to the comics and read Calvin and Hobbes (anyone else miss the joy of flapping open a giant newspaper?!). I vividly remember how sad I was when Bill Watterson stopped writing. I was almost 11 when the strip ended and over the next few years I bought most of the books I could find. One of my favorite things Calvin invented was a game called “Calvinball.” If you are not familiar with Calvinball, here are the basic rules: “Calvinball has no rules; the players make up their own rules as they go along, so that no Calvinball game is like another. Rules cannot be used twice (except for the rule that rules cannot be used twice), and any plays made in one game may not be made again in any future games.” 

Calvinball became the basis for many entertaining events while I was a youth minister, but I digress. The reason I bring up Calvinball is because it would be incredibly infuriating to play. We actually like rules and structure. We want to know where we stand, and in many ways we want to know that by following the rules we are winning. Rules help us measure success and know our standing. Many people say they do not like rules but that is mostly because rules are an inconvenience to what they want to do. The reality is, we all need structure to thrive in life. 

In preparation for Sunday’s sermon, I’ve spent time reflecting on Galatians 5 and Ephesians 4 and what Paul says about living life in the Spirit. These passages trip us up in our quest to be Spirit filled people. Galatians 5:18 says that there is no law for people who are led by the Spirit. This verse hits us weird and makes us a little uncomfortable. Maybe this is a one time thing for Paul with this specific church? He repeats the sentiment in 2 Cor. 3:6 and throughout Romans 8. There seems to be a tension between creating laws to follow and being led by the Spirit. This often makes us uncomfortable because it is hard to evaluate whether or not we are “right” when we are being led by the Spirit but we know that what we do is “right” when we clearly lay down lines we have to follow. 

This has been an issues in churches for ages and isn’t unique to our own tradition. Even the more “charismatic” churches who lay claim to being “Spirit led” often fall into the trap of laying down rules for how the Spirit works. I had a friend once tell me that I was not a true Christian because I do not have the evidence of the Spirit in my life, aka speaking in tongues. We put rules in place to help us evaluate our good standing and the good standing of others in regard to their relationship with Christ. Romans 8:14 tells us that “those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God.” So, what does it mean to be led by the Spirit? Is there a need for rules in our lives? How do we balance these things?

I read a book a few years ago that really challenged me, “Falling Upward” by Richard Rohr. This book stretched me and has continued to encourage me to live in the tension of the balance between living within the structure of well-defined rules and being led by the Spirit. Rohr is one who continually stretches me, challenges me, and even makes me uneasy at times. The basic premise of the book is this. There are two halves of life. The first half is focused on building structure and the second half is focused on living beyond the structure. The first half helps you discover who you are, establishing boundaries and structures to help provide definition. The second half is not a midway point per se but comes when crisis shakes the very core of who you are and forces you out of the structures that you feel you can control. In the second half of life, you learn to let go of control and follow God into the darkness. One of the major points about the second half of life is that you learn more by doing it wrong than by doing it right. Making a wrong step, coming back to God, and allowing him to help you make the right step into the darkness helps you walk better in the light he gives. To put this within the framework of our working metaphor for the Holy Spirit series, you best learn to sail by getting in the boat, lifting the anchor, hoisting the sails, and sailing. 

The problem we run into in the Christian walk is that we fail to move beyond the first half of life, and we begin to worship the structure rather than the God who has called us to live a dangerous life of following him. The harbor is secure, but boats are not made for the harbor. A life lived in the Spirit’s guiding is not a game of Calvinball. It is a game well played within the parameters of the Spirit’s guiding.

Spend some time reflecting on Galatians 5 and Ephesians 4:

• What does the Spirit do in your life to move you?

• What does life look like for someone who spends time listening to the Spirit?

• Based on these passages, how have you grown in the Spirit over the last year?

• What areas of your life do you need more guidance from the Spirit? 

Holy Spirit - Poured Out on All People

Are you open to the Spirit? 

I heard this question a while back presented in a book I was reading. It gave me pause. I’ve studied the Spirit for years in my personal study and even in academic study. I was challenged by a speaker nearly 15 years ago now to be open to studying the Spirit because our tradition has typically been opposed to the work of the Spirit in our lives. I took the challenge and opened myself to the study of the Spirit. I began to notice that the Spirit is everywhere in scripture, from the first page to the last. 

When you pay attention to the life of Jesus, he doesn’t do any miraculous works till after he receives the Holy Spirit in his baptism. The Gospels, in their own ways, show that Jesus didn’t do anything on his own, but through the Father or through the power of the Spirit. Luke is very explicit about the work of the Spirit in Jesus’ life and then in the life of the church in his second volume of work called Acts. When Jesus submits to death on the cross, he does so without the power to raise himself from the dead. His submission to death is a submission to the Father who raises him from the dead through the Spirit. Paul, in Romans 8, reminds the church that they are to live in the realm of the Spirit because the Spirit gives live. This same Spirit that lives within us is the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead! This Spirit living in us is what gives us true life (Romans 8:11)!! 

Are you open to the Spirit? 

I’ve had moments in my life where I’ve seriously sought the Spirit’s presence and guidance in my life. Those moments have been less often than I’d like to admit. Growing up hearing that the Spirit’s work stopped with the death of the Apostles because we now have the Bible has made it hard to be open to the Spirit. There’s nothing in the Bible that gives any credit to that teaching. It is a teaching that comes from the desire to be in control. We created a new Trinity: The Father, The Son, and The Holy Scriptures.

The philosophical foundations of many Western Churches are based in Rationalism of the Second Great Awakening. If we cannot explain it rationally it cannot be trusted. In this mindset, we closed the windows to the Spirit. With the emergence of Pentecostalism and Charismatic movements, we boarded up those windows and resisted any conversation around the Spirit’s work in our lives. 

In this series on the Holy Spirit, I want to take the boards off the windows and open them up to allow the fresh breeze of the Spirit to enter the house. I’ve found it helpful to put up some screens to filter out some of the flies and bugs we are worried about blowing in. Most studies I have heard on the Spirit have focused on the Spiritual Gifts and miraculous works that come with the Spirit. There is a time and place for those conversations, but I believe those are best left for another time. 

What we will focus on in this series is what it means to be led by the Spirit. We will look at the work of the Spirit in the Old Testament, in the life of Jesus, in the life of the early church, and what it should look like in our lives today in our personal life and in our communal life together.

To prepare for this Sunday, read John 14-16 and pay attention to how Jesus talks about the Spirit and the Spirit’s role in our lives. Jesus says that it is better for him to leave so that the Holy Spirit will come and guide us. Jesus has a higher view of the Spirit than his church does. This should give us pause. 

Peter’s message on the day of Pentecost was that the Holy Spirit would be poured out on all people in Baptism. This is the promised gift that comes with our Baptism (Acts 2:38). For those who have put on Christ in baptism, the Holy Spirit, God in Spirit, dwells in you. 

Are you open to the Spirit? 

John 15 - I AM the True Vine

“I am the true vine. Abide in me…bear fruit.” John 15:1-6

Think back over the last year. In what ways have you become more like Christ? Are you more, or less, patient with people? Do you more readily love your enemies? Do you offer more love to people in general? How is your joy? Are you at peace when the world around you doesn’t seem right? Do you seek unity with others more so than division? Have your “fits of anger” become less frequent? 

This isn’t a completely arbitrary list of questions. As I read John 15, Paul’s call to walk in the Spirit in Galatians 5 came to mind. I try to slow down from time to time and take stock in who I used to be and who I am changing into. This last year has been a hard journey of letting go of the conversations in my head. With the help of a spiritual mentor, I realized that I have an incredible ability of writing the script for other people, having lengthy arguments with them, and setting them straight in the process. My spiritual mentor helped me see how I have a tendency to dehumanize others in this process, losing sight of their humanity, and allow joy and love to slip away from my life because I don’t allow people to grow. 

This last year I struggled with allowing the worst version of people (as they present themselves on social media) to become the view of them in my mind. There were two people specifically from another time in my life who continually posted things that I simply saw as un-Christlike and damaging to Christian unity. I knew that responding to them would just further the problems often found in discourse on social media. So, I would hold court in my mind and destroy their arguments and destroy their humanity in the process. They never stood a chance in the court of opinion of my mind. When I recognized this in myself, with the help of someone who cares enough to call me to Christ’s likeness, I worked on developing some disciplines to reconnect with Christ to restore joy, peace, patience, and love in my heart for these people. That was an area of my life where I needed pruning so that I could bear fruit. 

I share this in hopes to encourage you on your journey. We are all walking together towards becoming more and more like Christ. In order to enter that kind of transformation, we have to be connected to the source of transformation. You cannot transform yourself. You can only submit to the pruning it takes to cultivate transformation. Spiritual disciplines help create space in your life for submission to the one who prunes. When Jesus calls us to abide in him, he is saying that we should be so connected to him as the source of life that we can say with Paul, “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). Wherever your “I” is getting too big, think ego, it needs to be pruned back so that your source of life comes from the vine. 

The journey of spiritual formation is one of relinquishment. Spiritual disciplines help us create space for the Spirit to enter and cut away the parts of ourselves that are keeping us from bearing fruit. These disciplines are not a way to earn salvation. We are connected to the vine by grace. We work at our disciplines to allow God to prune us in the ways that he sees fit. These disciplines are an act of submission rather than an act of trying to control our salvation. 

In the words of Thomas Merton:

True Christianity is growth in the life of the Spirit, a deepening of the new life, a continuous rebirth, in which the exterior and superficial life of the ego-self is discarded like an old snake skin and the mysterious, invisible self of the Spirit becomes more present and more active. The true Christian rebirth is a renewed transformation, a “Passover” in which [a person] is progressively liberated from selfishness and not only grows in love but in some sense “becomes love.” The perfection of the new birth is reached where there is no more selfishness, there is only love. In the language of the mystics, there is no more ego-self, there is only Christ; self no longer acts, only the Spirit acts in pure love. The perfect illumination is, then, the illumination of Love shining by itself. To become completely transparent and allow Love to shine by itself is the maturity of the “New Man.”

What disciplines have you cultivated to help you grow to be more like Christ? If you need help establishing some disciplines in your life, I would love to help you come up with a plan. Email me at ryan@nodachurch.com. We also provide resources for spiritual formation on our website: here.

Richard Foster: “Celebration of Discipline”

Foster gives a great account for the need for disciplines and the provenance they have throughout church history. I’ve come back to this book multiple times to reconnect with different disciplines as needed in my life. He writes in a way that makes you want to try them out. 

Adele Calhoun: “Spiritual Disciplines Handbook”

Calhoun’s book is a wonderful and easily accessible resource for a large variety of practices within the Christian tradition. She gives a brief introductions into each practice, a guide for how to practice them, and provides some structure for how to integrate these practices into your life individually or as a group. 

Jackie Halstead: “Leaning Into God's Embrace” 

I listened to an interview with Jackie Halstead a few months ago and bought her book as a result. She is from our branch of Christianity and her work helps connect us with our ancient past through the disciplines that shaped the early church. She provides a guide for how to use these practices in groups. I haven’t read this book yet but would love to read it with a few other people if anyone is interested. 

John 14 - I AM the Way, the Truth, and the Life

“I AM the Way, the Truth, the Life.” – John 14:6 

In Jesus’ I AM statement in John 14 he covers three things that most everyone wants to know in life. What is the way I am to go? What is truth? We hear the echoes of Pilate from John 18 who is wrestling with who oversees the world. What is life? This is what each of us is bombarded with every day in our society. The question of what it means to truly be living is the question where marketing hangs its hat. What is the picture of the good life? Answer that question honestly and you’ll have a glimpse into the true desire of your heart. Meditate regularly on these three questions and allow the Spirit to examine your heart. Don’t assume you’ve got the right answer and move on. These three things are worth always exploring. Look at the example of Jesus and then look at your life. Does your life line up to his example? Then keep letting the Spirit bring you along the way, into truth, to discover true life.

This section begins with Jesus giving assurance. It is this assurance that is needed to find yourself truly following the way. This assurance will help you find rest in what is really true in the world. This assurance will help you cut through everything the world is trying to sell you that brings you into empty ways of living. It will bring you into true life. Jesus is going to prepare a place for you. He calls this place, “my Father’s house.” When was the last time you heard Jesus refer to “His Father’s house”? Go back to John 2:16 when Jesus clears the temple. I’ve repeated this numerous times and it is worth repeating again. John places the cleansing of the temple at the beginning of his gospel so that everything you see Jesus do is seen through that event where he makes the bold claim that his body is the temple.

Jesus is preparing a place for you. It is a house that is big enough and has plenty of room for everyone. This plays a little bit with the imagery of Jesus coming and making his “dwelling” with us in John 1. That dwelling is temporary. The dwelling he is preparing for us is permanent. He’s trading a tent for a house. This is resurrection and new creation imagery. We trade this temporary life for something more permanent. This is “more physical” than what we experience right now. This is what Paul is saying in 1 Cor 15:53-54, “For the perishable must clothe itself with imperishable, and mortal with immortality…death has been swallowed up in victory.” This is not trading physical for a non-physical (spiritualized) existence. Jesus is promising a more physical life that is fully animated and enlivened by the Holy Spirit. This new creation life begins now as we wait for it more fully to come. The house he has prepared for us is not only a future hope but also a present reality. The question is, will you choose to live in that house, or will you continue to choose the temporary dwelling place of this world?

Let me be more clear. Jesus promises the Holy Spirit to come and live in and amongst us, the church. The Father is in Jesus. When you look at Jesus, you see and know the Father. John 16:20 says, “…I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.” Jesus came to be with us in our temporary dwelling so that he could invite us to live within the divine community, the Trinity, in the permanent dwelling. We experience this permanent dwelling when we are in the church together where the Spirit dwells. So, what are we to unite in? The Way. The Truth. The Life. 

“No one comes to the Father except through me.” The world sees this as arrogant. Jesus is seen as one of many ways into the next life. I’m not going to take time to unpack the differences in world religions but most of them only carry you to the divine mountain and fail to take you to the top. Jesus is God in the flesh who stepped down from the mountain to come to us and invite us to join him “on the way” as the path to Truth and Life. Part of the reason the world has rejected Jesus as The Way, and only way, is because of the failed witness of his people. We tell the world that the only way to “get to heaven” is through Jesus, and this is correct, but then we go on living as though Jesus isn’t the only way. Model your life after Jesus and you will be walking along the Way.

Christians have often sought power over the world through worldly means, but Jesus shows us the Way by washing his disciples’ feet. We often try to win fights with our own understanding of facts and “truth,” but Jesus lays down his rights, and his life, to lift others up (Philippians 2:1-11). Jesus meets people where they are in their messy lives without fear of their mess getting on him because he knows fully where his home is. Christians have often fought to make this life more comfortable for themselves as if this were our permeant dwelling place. Jesus says, “Do not let your hearts be troubled…my Father’s house has many rooms.” When we let go of our grip on this world, and hold firmly to the world that is to come, we will be able to truly love people where they are, invite them to join us on the Way, and bring them into Truth and Life with Jesus. This isn’t “truth and life” as seen in the world, but Truth and Life that came down to show us how to truly live in servitude of others. When we become more interested in “truth” from this world, rather than living in the Truth of Jesus, we will never be set free (John 8:31-32). 

John 11 - I AM the Resurrection and the Life

“I AM the resurrection and the life…” – John 11:25

When I preached on this text just over a month ago, I focused on the “If then…” of Martha and Mary and how we wish for things to be different in this world. If God had shown up… If this or that election had turned out different… If I had left my house 10 min earlier… If I had taken better care of myself earlier in life… There are a lot of “if then…” statements that leave us longing for a different present. The point I was making then, and I want to make in a whole different way now, is that Jesus calls us out of our “if then…” and into a “if Jesus…” way of viewing the world. It is easy for us to get overwhelmed with the state of the world when things are not going the way that we think they should. We end up spending so much time wishing life away, focusing on how things should be different, that we miss where Jesus is showing up in the mess of life and breathe new life into it. Do you believe that Jesus can breathe new life into whatever mess you perceive is going on around you? 

When Jesus comforts Martha, he points her to a future reality, “Your brother will rise again” (11:23). Martha believes the standard Jewish teaching about what happens after we die. She says, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day” (v24). We need to pause for a moment and talk about what “Resurrection” means for the Jews, and for us today. Resurrection does not mean the soul leaves the body at the end of time to go into a heavenly spiritual existence without a body. Resurrection, for the Jews and the early Christians, was a coming into new life with new bodies, fit for the new creation. It is based in the belief that God created the world to be good and God hasn’t given up on that creation. Any notion that our end goal is a spiritualized, non-physical, bodiless, existence comes from the teachings of Greek Philosophy (Plato) and has been read into the Bible, not read from the Bible. 

Here is some of the resurrection imagery in the Old Testament of the life that is to come:

The imagery of the dry bones coming to life in Ezekiel 37.

The new life springing from the water of life flowing from the temple in Ezekiel 47. 

The awakening of those who sleep in the dust in Daniel 12:1-3.

The imagery of the “circle of life” being brough into peace together in Isaiah 11.

The hope of new heavens and new earth in Isaiah 65-66.

There are more images throughout scripture and when you study these, you begin to see more clearly the hope expressed all throughout the New Testament as it echoes the hope offered throughout the Old Testament. The hope offered throughout the Bible is a vision of new heavens and new earth, God’s whole new world. It is a world like ours only with its beauty and power enhanced. The most beautiful things of this world are the minor things of the world to come (think streets of gold and gates of pearl). The pain, ugliness, and grief found in this current world, brought on by the brokenness of the creation, will be abolished for good. The Jews and the early Christians believed that within this new world, all God’s people from the ancient times to the present would be given new bodies, to share and enjoy the life of the new creation. These physical bodies would be animated by the Spirit and would be the full image bearers within the good creation God designed us to be. 

The hope for the Jews and early Christians was a fully physical and fully spiritual existence as God intended for it to be. The broken creation divorced the physical and spiritual and God intends to bring them back together. This is not reincarnation where we continue repeatedly within this broken creation. Resurrection is the undoing of death’s hold on this creation and restoring it to what God intended it to be. This is the picture painted in Revelation 20:13-15 when death is thrown into the lake of fire.

Jesus’ comfort that Martha’s brother will “rise again” doesn’t seem to provide much comfort in that moment. Thinking of the future sometimes doesn’t give the comfort needed in the present. What Marth wasn’t prepared for is that in Jesus, the future has burst into the present. When Jesus says, “I AM the resurrection and the life,” he moves resurrection from being just a future fact or just a doctrine. The resurrection is a person, and he is standing in front of Martha, imploring her to make a huge jump of trust and hope.

What does any of this mean about being a follower of Jesus? Jesus is the resurrection and the life, bringing the future hope into the present. Changing our “If then…” into “if Jesus…” The Spirit we are given in our baptism is the Spirit that brings the resurrection. Life in Jesus is a life lived in the future reality of the resurrection where God restores all things back to his good creation. You don’t live just with future hope, but we are people who bring future hope to a broken creation. 

Where are you bringing hope to others today? Where do you see people marginalized and hurting? What message of hope do you have for them in their suffering? This is what Jesus teaches us in the Lord’s Prayer, “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” 

John 10 - I AM the Gate...the Good Shepherd

“I AM the gate for the sheep…I AM the good shepherd.” – John 10

Like most of you, I am not incredibly familiar with shepherding metaphors. Jesus’ metaphors about being a gate and a good shepherd have a lot of power at face value but, like most things with John, have multiple layers of depth that shouldn’t be missed. The simple take aways from John 10 are: you need to know Jesus’ voice so that you can follow him, he knows you by name, he lays his life down for you, more people are his sheep than you would expect, and no one can snatch Jesus’ sheep away. Let’s dive a little deeper.

We’ve been jumping around the Gospel of John following different themes. My hope is that you will read through the entirety of John and see how it all weaves together into a beautiful tapestry. John 10 starts with a five-verse parable about shepherds and sheep. You have to remember that John did not write his work with chapter breaks. The context of what we are reading in John 10 flows out of the question that dominates chapter 9: is Jesus from God or now? Is he a prophet? Is he the Messiah? Is he the “son of man” who will judge the world? In response to these swirling questions, Jesus stops to talk about shepherds and sheep. Why?

Throughout scripture, the picture of a shepherd with his sheep is frequently used to refer to the king and his people. Ezekiel 34 pictures the ideal king as a shepherd, likely modeled after the shepherd-boy David, who became the king after God’s own heart. This is the image that Jesus chooses to answer the question of his identity as the true king, not just of Israel, but of the world. We can be tempted to move quickly past these first five verses to get to the “I AM” statements in 9, 11&14. Before moving on to his own identity as the “Gate and Good Shepherd” who is King above all, Jesus first lays the contrast between true shepherds and false ones. 

Read verses 1-5 again. Jesus might have had in mind the revolutionary leaders and warlords who emerged during his lifetime who were eager to lead Israel into confrontation with the imperial powers. He most certainly had the house of Herod in mind, who were eager to submit to Rome in exchange for their own power and wealth. Jesus is posing the simple question: how will you know God’s true, appointed king when he comes? There are a lot of voices out there asking you to follow them. They give promise of green pastures, protection, and security of a particular way of life. Your vote of confidence for them as a leader lines their pockets with money and power. When things get tough, they go home to their small palaces that you help build and enjoy their green pastures, protection, and security leaving you to fend for yourselves. I recognize that I am painting a cynical picture of elected officials, but my main point is this, none of them, not even one, are the Good Shepherd. 

You can tell a true leader in the same way you can tell a good shepherd. The good shepherd does not do things in his own interest but in the interest of his sheep. This is the leader worth following. Know the voice of the shepherd so well that you can distinguish his voice from the other voices that makes promises in exchange for your allegiances. Jesus is answering the questions of his identity loudly. It’s as if he’s saying, “The fact that people are hearing me and following me, most notably the man born blind, is a sign that God has sent me.” Find a shepherd whose only interest is the wellbeing of his sheep and you will find a leader worth following because you would have found God’s anointed.

This parable is unpacked over the next three sections: 7-10, 11-18, and 25-30. Read this whole chapter and allow John to take you deeper into following the one voice you need to hear.

Moving from the Head to the Heart:

• Sit with God in prayer and ask that he reveal to you voices that you’re following that are not the voice of Jesus.

• Ask God to humble you so that you will continue to search after the voice of Jesus and not assume you know what he says.

• Create space in your day to spend time listening to the voice of Jesus, see how he loves people, and ask God to help you follow him.