A, Mid Week Lent 3- Sermon Series "The Litany of Jesus' Treasures - Work"

By the toils of Jesus, Lord teach us how to work; allowing the Holy Spirit to inspire work within us.  Amen.

If you’re going to do the job, you may as well do it right the first time.

But how was God to do the work of saving humanity?  He tested humanity and showed that anointing the Israelites as his chosen people was not good enough.  He placed kings over Israel and they too failed.  His most faithful king, King David, also turned away from God, trusting the strength of his own fighting men.  Even David, was not good enough!  God had to find the right way for humanity to fulfill all righteousness; one that was effective, functional, and perfect.

God needed the work to be more than just pragmatic, that is, done because a certain deed works, or  for the love of the deed.  No!  He needed the work done to convey his deep love for humanity.  This love needed not just be practical but personal, relational, and demonstrate to the recipient their worth to God the Father, and his willingness to make the recipient holy.  Only through becoming holy can a person come to God without fear of God’s almighty holiness causing death.

It seems God the Father was in a bit of a quagmire over how to sort out humanity’s sin and at the same time, give us access into his holy presence, for a relationship that brings life rather than death.

In Jesus Christ, our Heavenly Father found the effective, functional, and perfect answer to bring the work of righteousness to completion.

Last Sunday, we heard Jesus at Jacob’s Well with the Samaritan Woman.  Here, Jesus proves to be the perfect mediator between a Holy God and a sinful woman.  Without fear the woman speaks to Jesus, and without condemning the woman, Jesus condemns her sin and gives her his Word of life, God the Father’s Word of life!

To the woman, Jesus teaches and says, “[T]he hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.  God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”  (John 4:23–24 ESV)

Then to his disciples, Jesus teaches and says, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.  …Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest.  I sent you to reap that for which you did not labour. …Others have laboured, and you have entered into their labour.”  (John 4:34,35b,38 ESV)

See how Jesus works!  He mediates the two together.  Sinner and teachers, so the sinner leaves to become the teacher, and the teachers learn that they are sinners. 

But the work Jesus does just does not end there!  We know if the work was finished here, it would be left undone, and the sinners would not have the power to teach, and the teachers would lose the power to learn about their sin.  God needed to do the complete job.  If he was going to do the job he needed to do it right.  If there was to be righteousness on earth, Jesus needed to finish, complete, or fulfil all righteousness.

The mediation work of Jesus was completed on the cross, when Jesus cried out, “it is finished”!  He hung his head, and he died!  The work was done!

God now calls you to hang your heads, and know that, “it is finished!”  His work is done and so too is yours.  However, like the disciples Jesus taught, you are called to enter into the labour of others, to continue the work of others!

Therefore, the teacher-sinner paradox continues.  Jesus’ work is finished in you, but now through you he seeks to finish it in others.

It now seems we are in the same quagmire as God.  We have been finished, but death is not finished for all others.  In fact, certain elements of death still remain with us in this life, and will not be finished until the death of eternal death in our earthly death.  How do we demonstrate the death of eternal death to others, while we live on this side of death? Or, how do we teach others about life in the realm of death?

What does God’s Word say?  We go back to the work and Word of Jesus!  See how he functioned while he lived under the sentence of death, and listen to what he taught, knowing his death and resurrection justifies what he said and taught.

True worshippers of God the Father, workers of God, worship in spirit and in truth. 

Jesus said, “‘it is finished’, bowed his head and gave up his spirit.” (John 19:30 ESV)  You and I are called to give up our spirits and know it is finished.  This involves allowing the Holy Spirit to give us life, having died to sin, so he can inspire us to live in the righteousness of Jesus Christ. 

We the sinners, learn from our sinfulness to become the teachers, continually being taught by the Holy Spirit and Jesus’ righteous work, what the toil of God is.  So, what is the toil of God, given to us?  It is the work of holiness.

Paul gives us the reality of Jesus’ finishing work, saying, “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?  If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him.  For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.”  (1 Corinthians 3:16–17 ESV)

The paradox of God’s holy work is strange to the world, and therefore, takes time to sort itself out in us.  This is because we still struggle with the works of darkness and death!  But God the Holy Spirit is constantly bringing us to the completed work of Jesus Christ on the cross.  In fact, this is the work and purpose of the Holy Spirit in us, as individuals, and within the worshipping community of those needing to gather around Jesus Christ.  The Holy Spirit works to call, gather, and enlighten us with faith in Jesus Christ’s work.

Jesus left humanity’s visual presence, but he has not gone!  He is hidden but now we see him with faith, given through the Holy Spirit’s work. 

God the Father perfectly finishes the job by sending Jesus Christ, to work salvation on the cross.  He continues this work, by also sending the Holy Spirit, to finish this salvation in us, by constantly leading us to Jesus Christ, out of our sins.  You are both a student and a teacher of the Holy Spirit!

In this finishing school of the Holy Spirit, Jesus says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father.” (John 14:12 ESV)

What is it you learn and teach?  What are these strange works, we both learn from, and teach?  What are the good works, the greater works we do now, since we are under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, who makes us alive in Jesus Christ, so we can reflect this life, to the masses who are dead and dying around us?

These are the works of confession!  Confessing our sin, learning from what God teaches us about his forgiveness of sin, and teaching others about how they can be forgiven, by sharing what God has forgiven, and how God has forgiven in Jesus Christ.

In this finishing school of the Holy Spirit, “we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:10 ESV)

Let us allow the Holy Spirit to foster in us, “what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places.”  (Ephesians 1:19–20 ESV)

Amen.

Next week: we hear about the love of Jesus, so we might allow the Holy Spirit to inspire us to love.

C, Midweek Lent 3 - The Lord's Prayer #4 - Matthew 6:10a,13a "Lead us into Your Coming Kingdom"

Matthew 6:10a,13a   Your kingdom come … Lead us not into temptation.

After our Father in heaven has shown us his holiness, made us holy, and sent us back out into his world, having been made holy by the blood of Jesus, we go with the promise that God’s kingdom is coming. 

What a beautiful promise we have, despite all the transient kingdoms of this world, an eternal imperishable kingdom that’s coming by God’s gracious mercy and will, to all who believe in him.

In actual fact, his kingdom has already come to us, it is coming to us, and it will come to us as promised. 

Our Father’s heavenly kingdom has come to us through Jesus’ death and resurrection.  His kingdom has come to us, through the water and the word of our baptism into Christ the King’s death and resurrection.

The kingdom daily comes to us through the word of God as the Holy Spirit deposits the kingdom within us and guards it for Jesus’ and our sake.  And because we have received the kingdom by the work of Jesus at the cross, and the work of the Holy Spirit bringing us to Jesus, we can call on our Father, just like a little child runs with open trusting arms, to his or her daddy.

Because the kingdom of God is with us, in us, and eternally around us, we can tell our Father all things with which we need help, both good and bad.  We have no need of fear of rejection when we confess to him all our failures, looking for forgiveness for all disasters we have brought on ourselves and others.

The kingdom of God will also come to us in the future.  We live with the promise that God’s kingdom is coming, despite having to travel the way of death, as a result of sin.  But the promise for us, is that the death we will experience, won’t be a death of eternal separation from God, but one in which we will be transformed into holy heavenly beings. 

What that is we do not exactly know.  But we wait with eager expectations knowing that the old, will be done away with and finished.  We will see Jesus in all his glory, and we will see ourselves for whom God originally intended us to be.  You will see the new you, that which for now, God has hidden within the sinfulness of your human flesh.  All who have died trusting in Christ will see their completion in Christ, which even now the Holy Spirit is depositing within.

Our Father’s kingdom is holy.  He is holy in his kingdom.  We are made holy for his kingdom, we are being made holy for his kingdom, and we will be made holy for his kingdom.  At this point in time, we know and live in holiness by faith, and in hope we look forward to our holiness being revealed, once our earthly death strips us of our sinful nature.

Coupled within the Lord’s prayer, place alongside the promise of the heavenly Father’s coming kingdom, is the plea for us not to be led into temptation.  These temptations are temptations to seek, find, or build for ourselves different kingdoms as well as being deceived into believing God’s kingdom is not for us, or not coming for us.

The petitions, “your kingdom come” and, “lead us not into temptation”, are petitions for the working week. 

As we go to work on Monday we pray “your kingdom come”.  We go to work each new week with the will, not to work for ourselves a contrary kingdom, to the kingdom of God.   But we go bearing the kingdom of God, so others might see something different in us, and we might be given the opportunity to be the conduit, through which God’s kingdom can come to them.

But we also go, knowing because God is giving us his kingdom,  he also sends the Holy Spirit with us, to lead us.  We go out from God’s house each week with faith.  Not our faith!  But faith given by the Holy Spirit, faith in Jesus Christ having been raised from the dead, who now sits at the right hand of God the Father in his kingdom.  This faith comes from hearing the word of God.  Therefore, the kingdom also comes when we hear the word of God!

We go out into the kingdoms of this world knowing, like Jesus, we will encounter many trials and temptations.  But as we go, we do so, praying for him to lead us.  We are being led out from God’s house in faith, knowing our destination is back in God’s house next week, where we once again will be rested and restored, fed, and forgiven.

There is a temptation that God’s kingdom is not coming which lead many to live a fast life of working for the weekend.  This kingdom usually ends in hangover, but worse it also leads to fatalism, violence both sexual and physical, depression, self-destruction, community chaos, emptiness, and hopelessness.

The faith with which we go out, is also intertwined with hope, because of the father’s love for us.  Faith gives us the means to live with Christ in our day to day lives.  Likewise, hope helps us to die with Jesus, in our day to day lives. 

When there is no hope in Jesus, humanity is ultimately overcome with the hopelessness of death.  But the sinful self, seeks to trust in its own blind principles, and impotent powers.  The old Adam is constantly wooed and seduced by the powers and principles of the world.  Behind this is the devil with all his powers and principalities.

So, when God seeks to kill things in us like pride, self-righteousness, vain glory from our goodness, lust, jealousy, hatred, greed, and other passions of the flesh, the old Adam within, the human spirit, fights against God killing these things. 

The old Adam is overcome by temptations of the things God seeks to kill within us.  Through enticement by the world, and the devil, the old Adam is led to choose kingdoms of its own doing, while rejecting the one holy kingdom of God.

However, all contrary kingdoms to God’s coming kingdom, are houses of cards.  They are thinly veiled kingdoms of hopelessness.  But the devil knows, if he keeps us in the darkness of this deception, our hopelessness will become eternal.  Our hope in false kings and fake kingdoms will take us to death but not through it!

For us, though, we go out into the kingdoms of this world in faith, bearing Christ to a world that’s losing its hope.  You and I are a “faithful presence” of God’s kingdom coming to those who need God’s kingdom, but for whatever reason are not receiving it. 

We are those who are being led from temptation, into repentance, through forgiveness, and into the coming kingdom.  We are witnesses of weakness, demonstrating the hope we have, through the daily deaths we suffer, where we allow ourselves to die, day by day, for Jesus to live in us, and through us.

We endure deaths like, aging, loss of abilities and confidences, bearing of false witness against us, slander, bullying, rejection, loss of property, depression, and destitution.  We also suffer when we recognise the poverty of our spirit, so we can confess our sin.  All kingdoms must die so we can see God’s kingdom coming in all its power and glory.

Finally, our physical death comes too.  But this is the final glorious coming of the Father’s kingdom for those who have allowed the Holy Spirit to drown them in the death of Jesus Christ and raise them to a new life in Jesus Christ’s resurrection over death. 

Faith will lead us out into this last week here on earth, just like all the other weeks.  However, this week will end, once and for all, having had our faith and hope realised when we open our eyes to the eternal house of God the Father, and see Jesus seated at his right hand.  We will see God’s glory streaming with pure unadulterated love, from the throne of his kingdom having come.

Then we will worship forever, that our Father’s kingdom has come, and we have been led by the Lamb of God and the Holy Spirit, into the power and glory of our Father’s kingdom.  A kingdom of eternal peace, joy, and love.  Amen.

Next week we hear our Father’s will in heaven is to forgive us our sins, and we will hear how he does this and continues to do this.