Jesus sends the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit judges the world and the verdict is guilty and that has implications for the particulars of our lives here at the end of 2024. If Jesus and his way, and His Kingdom, truth, and goodness are true north, the way things are supposed to be. The way God intended them to be. The way God wants them to be. Then the world, that is wrong about sin, righteousness, and judgment is morally, intellectually, ethically, and spiritually headed south. When the New Testament uses the term world, there's a whole lot of meaning packed up in that. When it uses the term world it often means, maybe even usually means, that the world and its systems are bankrupt. They're not slightly off course, they are completely off course. Instead of heading toward true north, they are heading toward false South. In every single way, a train bound for nowhere, literally. And the Holy Spirit's job is to alert the world that it's traveling this train bound for nowhere.
Sometimes we wish God spoke more often and more clearly to us about the specifics of our lives. What major should we take in college? Is this the right job? Is this the right marriage partner? Should we move to a bigger house? What President should we vote for? Should I retire? What should I do after I retire? And a million other particulars that we might wish God would just stand in front of us and say, “Do this and don't do that.” But here's the thing, the Holy Spirit's primary goal in guidance is not to give us the answers, but rather to shape us into people who follow and honor God even when the questions remain unanswered. His goal is not to give us specific guidance in every situation. His goal is to guide us to become a certain kind of person who is mature in the character of Christ, so we don't need his specific guidance in every situation. Or put it this way, we don't need to constantly consult the “All Trails App”, because we are an experienced and mature hiker, and we know where the trail is even when it's not obvious.
The other thing that Jesus points out here, is that the focus of the Holy Spirit's communication, his speaking, isn't in the direction of the Father, but it's in our direction. In verse 26 Jesus says, “But the advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.” If the Holy Spirit, Advocate role, was on our behalf before the Father, you would think that Jesus would be emphasizing that the Holy Spirit is saying to the Father. Instead, Jesus is emphasizing what the advocate will be reminding us of. How he will be reminding us of the things that Jesus said. And then there's the fact of who exactly the Advocate is testifying for, on behalf of whom, the advocate is testifying for. Jesus says in John 15:26, “When the Advocate comes, whom I will send you from the Father -- the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father -- he will testify about me.” Jesus is saying that the advocate testifies about Jesus. Which when you put all of this together sure makes it sound like the Holy Spirit isn't so much our Advocate before the Father, but rather Jesus's Advocate before us, before humanity. That in the definition of "paracletos," that I read earlier, you know this definition of a person of high social standing who speaks on behalf of a defendant in a court of law before a judge. That the defendant in this case is Jesus, and the things that he has taught us about the Kingdom of God. That the courtroom is the court of human will. And that the judge, the judge is us.
The holy spirit is here with us right now, comforting us, guiding us, teaching us, challenging us, and yes even correcting us and telling us when we have missed the mark. You see, the Holy Spirit isn't simply God's afterglow or Jesus's afterglow. We'll talk about people in our lives who aren't with us physically, but we'll say stuff like, “well, you know they’re here in spirit,” which is really a way of saying that they're not here. They're really gone, but we kind of, sort of can remember them, sort of thing. I mean, sometimes we think about the Holy Spirit that way, God's afterglow, the things that we remember about him, kind of a passive presence in the corner. A reminder that at some point Jesus walked the Earth, and yes, at some point in the future we'll see him again, but until then, I guess we have the Holy Spirit to remember Jesus by. That's not who the Holy Spirit is! The Holy Spirit is a fully alive, fully present, fully active, member of the Trinity.
A scandal in the Bible is something that causes us to stumble, to trip. A scandal in the Bible then is a rock sticking up ever so slightly, in the middle of the trail, and we don't see it, but our left foot clips it as we walk by, and we stumble, and we might even fall down.
1 Corinthians 1:23, Paul writing, “…. we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block, a scandal, to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” Christ crucified, a scandal, scandalous to Jews, and foolishness to Gentiles, why? Because no King, no one with power, no one of importance, no great leader, no one claiming to be the Messiah, claiming to be from God, claiming to be God. No one would die willingly, on a despicable Roman cross. But love the way God does, it is scandalous.
Christian hope is bound to the resurrection of Jesus. When you read the Bible on hope, you find hope very close to language about the resurrection.
1 Peter 1:3, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead…..”
The New Testament's rallying cry is, Remember The Resurrection. It's a good word of encouragement. Kind of a good thing to say to one another, “hey remember the resurrection.” Remember God raised Jesus from the dead. Remember his power brought him back to life. Remember that the God we follow has that kind of power. Remember the God we follow is greater than the sin, death, decay and all of the old that author such horrific pain in this world. Remember the God who raised Jesus from the dead is in charge of this world, and he is moving this world toward his will and purpose. And one day he's going to finish the job and all will be well. Remember The Resurrection.
From Mark 5:24-34, “So Jesus went with them. A large crowd surrounded and pressed around him.” Feel the claustrophobic crowd pushing in. Hear the cacophony of voices calling out. Smell the bodies pressing together and sense the excited uncertainty about what Jesus will do next. “A woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse.”
Twelve years of hoping and of hopes dashed. Twelve years of misery, of pain, of weakness. She is without resources; financially, physically, emotionally, mentally. She is destitute and discouraged beyond words and worst of all she is alone. Belonging nowhere and with no one. I know what it feels like to feel alone even in a crowd, so do you. I wonder what this Woman's name was, despair, hopeless, outcast. Twelve years of an ailment that made her unclean and outside of society and even left without a place to meet with God. She can't go to the synagogue to seek out Jesus where he often taught. She can't even go there to pray. From Leviticus 15:19….“when a woman has her regular flow of blood, the impurity of her monthly period will last seven days, and anyone who touches her will be unclean till evening.” But she has not been unclean for seven days but twelve grueling years. Unlike Jairus, who has a position of standing, she is nothing and she has lived this reality every day, year after year.
Maybe you've tasted this kind of despair. Perhaps you know pain and doubt is an ever-present companion. You wonder where you belong. If you belong. We all carry our own feelings of unclean, outcast, alone. When God seems distant and faith bleeding, but we are not alone. And somewhere deep inside this broken woman she finds a mustard seed of faith and takes a risk, an audacious risk. She works her way through the crowd until she is close enough to touch Jesus.
Matthew 13:31–32, “Jesus told them another parable: “” The Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches.””
There are a whole bunch of things we could say about this short parable. But one will suffice for our purposes today, and it's this: when flawed and broken people take action in The Power of Jesus, for the sake of his kingdom, however small or insignificant that action may seem, God starts to move. And in ways I don't know how to describe, because I don't fully understand, the Kingdom activates, often slowly, often imperceptibly. We can't see what God is doing. Just like we can't see all that is happening under the ground when the Mustard Seed gets planted. But as God moves, good fruit eventually begins to emerge. And again, it may take a long time to even notice, and we may never notice. But as God's kingdom is established and this good fruit begins to grow, it extends in many directions and as it extends it impacts people. It rescues people. It redeems people. And it changes people. This little mustard seed that sometime in the past was put in the ground by flawed and broken people eventually becomes a kind of shelter. A kind of home. A place of restoration. And that's how the Christian story keeps moving through history toward its ultimate culmination. God moves through the small actions we take in his name and the goodness, and the grace and the truth of his kingdom expands. And as it does, it impacts people, it rescues people, it changes people. And many of us who are here today have a story to tell of how God did this in us and is still doing this in us.
We pursue relationships with those with different experiences, backgrounds, opinions, and life circumstances. Our differences create space for Jesus to unite us in Him. A unified community of un-likes proclaims good news to a fracturing world.
In Ephesians chapter 2, starting in verse 14, Paul says, “for he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility......His purpose was to create in himself one new Humanity out of the two, thus making peace."
When we think of community at Oak Hills, and walking that road together toward life in the Kingdom, we're talking about people who are different in every way. Unlikes, coming together and being the church in and through Jesus Christ. The walls of separation and division, constructed by attitudes like, "well I want to be with people like me", or "I want to worship with people like me", or "I want to do church with people like me." These walls get leveled by the real presence and power of King Jesus in our midst.
God is always at work rebuilding shalom. He is healing the sick. He is feeding the hungry. He's bringing Comfort to the lonely. He is caring for the Foreigner. He is freeing prisoners. He is soothing the pains and the scars that life in a broken world brings to the people in it. God's mission is not merely a conceptual one. It's not merely theoretical. It's not merely a new philosophy to be discussed and debated in the halls of the learned, and those with the luxury of time and energy that think about and discuss such things. God's mission is a hands-on felt need, tangible dirt under your fingernail’s kind of mission. Where he is addressing not just the spiritual damage that sin has done, but the physical and emotional damage as well. And we have the opportunity to join with him to address those needs as an extension of Jesus's presence here on earth. Jesus himself invites us and reminds us that whatever we do for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of his, we are doing it for him as Matthew 25 reminds us. So, we engage in a lot of what we call around here, shalom building opportunities, where we are working to promote this universal flourishing.