Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
"Here as in Heaven."
For more information visit : garden.church
You're listening to the Garden Church podcast. We're in a series called church on fire, a journey through the book of acts. This is a story of ordinary people filled with the spirit, carrying the presence of Jesus into every corner of the world. The same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead is alive and in us today. Join us as we step into the call to be people set on fire for his mission.
Bill Dogterom:It's good to be with you in this place and at this time. If you follow the the line down, I've been part of it since we were in the basement, since we were literally in the basement. And it's been exciting to to see what God has done over the over the past couple decades. Not in the church gathered only, but in the people who are the church, which is, way more important. I've been having the privilege to walk with Alex and and Darren for probably twenty years or so, and to see what God has done in this place is pretty astounding.
Bill Dogterom:Clearly, it is the mark of organizational and strategic genius that has produced an outcome such as this. Yeah? No. We're just we're just kinda keep trying to keep up with the holy spirit is what we're doing and to attend to what And and the reason I say that kind of half in jest is because we might think that that's what it is, that it's just some marketing thing, some strategic plan, some some something somewhere that somebody figured out and and here we go, it's alchemy. And in fact, I I I think it would be fair to say and you guys correct me if I'm wrong but almost at every turn we have been surprised.
Bill Dogterom:We wouldn't even have known how to pray for the outcomes that God wants to generate. And, the passage we look at this morning in Acts chapter one, Darren's been walking us through this, kind of I think as a way of saying, what is How is how is scripture informing what we're seeing? Without us trying to control it, without us trying to manage it or manufacture it, how do we join in? How do we catch the wave of what God is doing without trying to to make something happen? Without trying to We wanna be good stewards of of what God is doing but at the same time we recognize there's no nobody in charge here.
Bill Dogterom:There's no nobody in control and the more that we attempt to do that as we'll learn throughout the study of the book of Acts, the more we attempt to do that, the more we'll get run over by what God is actually doing and being kind of caught off guard by the wonder wonder of it. We sit here this morning, the overflow rooms and it's like, couldn't they have thought this out better? The answer is no. Could not. How in the world do you plan for this?
Bill Dogterom:How in the world do you plan for this? And so I want to invite us into a posture of community that that puts us in a place of saying, hands open, Lord, we wanna be surrendered to you for whatever it is that you're going to do. And the passage we look at here is Acts chapter one. We wanna not get distracted by the wonder of what God is doing so that we miss God. God does things that are intended to be signs that point to him but they are so magnificent that we stop on the wayside and start to take picture of the signs and never get to the to the thing the signs are pointing to namely relationship with him.
Bill Dogterom:And so last week walking through this and again the point is is clear, they did not know what to what to expect. When when they met Jesus, they had a kind of a short list of things that they thought would revival would look like. Will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? And Jesus just puts their expectations on the ground and stomps on them. It's not for you to know.
Bill Dogterom:And notice, he doesn't tell them what their expectations should be replaced with. He just says go and wait until you are filled with and then you will be and be in such a way that witness is born. The Holy Spirit does not come first to empower us to do something. The Holy Spirit comes first to empower us to be someone. To be a community that in its way of being bears witness to the reality of Jesus.
Bill Dogterom:So all they know is to go and wait and they're not very good at it. None of us are. It is it is a but they lean into this and here we pick it up in verse 12. The apostles returned to Jerusalem from the hill called the Mount Of Olives, a Sabbath day's walk, from the city. When they arrived, they went upstairs to the room where they were staying and those present were Peter, John, James, Andrew, Philip, Thomas, Bartholomew, Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, Simon the Zealot, Judas the son of James.
Bill Dogterom:They all joined together constantly in prayer along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus and his brothers. In those days Peter stood up among the believers, group numbering about a 120 and said, brothers and sisters, scripture had to be fulfilled in which the Holy Spirit spoke long ago through David concerning Judas who served as a guide for those who arrested Jesus. He was one of our number. He shared in our ministry. With the payment he received for his wickedness Judas bought a field and there he fell headlong, his body bursting open, his intestines spilling out.
Bill Dogterom:Everyone in Jerusalem heard about this and they called that field in their language Akedama which is field of blood. Peter continues his speech for, it is written in the book of Psalms, may his place be deserted. Let there be no one to dwell in it. May another take his place of leadership. Therefore, it is necessary to choose one of the men who have been with us the whole time.
Bill Dogterom:The Lord Jesus was living among us beginning from John's baptism to the time when Jesus was taken up from us. For one of these must become a witness with us of his resurrection. So they nominated two men, Joseph called Barsabbas also known as Justus and Matthias. When they prayed, Lord, you know everyone's heart, show us which of these two you have chosen to take over this apostolic ministry which Judas left to go to where he belongs. Then they cast lots and the lot fell to Matthias.
Bill Dogterom:He was added to the 11 apostles. What a weird story. I mean, can you think of us, of a stranger foundation for what's coming next week with because we already, I mean, we're we're on the backside of chapter two. Right? With the coming of the holy spirit.
Bill Dogterom:The spirit of God breathing into the gathered body and echo of Genesis two. The the the community gathered and then the spirit of God breathes life into this new way of being human. Right? And we're on the backside. We're on the on the recipient side of that.
Bill Dogterom:But here, you you can't It's really hard to get there from this this chunk of scripture here. That's the point, course. It's unpredictable, it's uncontrollable. Why? Because if it was predictable, if it was controllable, we would try to predict it and we would try to control it.
Bill Dogterom:God is saying, this is mine, keep your hands in your pockets. Don't don't touch this. Don't touch this. However, there is a foundational understanding that Luke is trying to sketch here so that when the weight, the glory, the chavod of God comes to rest on this gathered community, it doesn't collapse in disorder. And the first thing that we we notice is they gather together, there's the the the usual suspects.
Bill Dogterom:There's 11 of them gathered together and then Luke just throws this in, Mary, his mother and other women, oh, and his brothers as well. So they are, remember, John lets us know, he's closest to the family of the whole bunch, that his brothers were suspicious of Jesus to begin with. They were they were Which wouldn't you be? Right? They at one point thought he would had lost his his marbles, that the the cheese had slipped right off the cracker and and that he needed to be taken into protective custody.
Bill Dogterom:And so so there there there however, resurrection will change your mind about a lot of things. And and it's all of a sudden this awareness, oh wait, what he had been saying all along was actually true. And they become significant leaders in the church. One of them writes a a powerful letter to the church. So so this crew is gathered and they're they're joining together.
Bill Dogterom:Notice this idea of constantly in prayer. This does not mean that they are are calling on God at all times, that they are laying flat out in on that upper room floor at all times. It doesn't mean that they are interceding in the ways that we think of it with a nice, you know, band playing in behind with the They do not know how to pray for outcomes. So when the word prayer is used here, it's not language, it's presence. It's not words, it's abiding.
Bill Dogterom:They are together. They are in God's presence and certainly there are prayers that arise like, oh God, what are we gonna do now? Those kinds of prayers are probably going to arise in there. But they don't know to pray for anything. This is really important because sometimes we get really disappointed because our expectation expressed in prayer is disappointed when God shows up.
Bill Dogterom:I don't want to waste time on disappointment with an answer that I set God up for. I don't want to write a check and sign God's name and then get angry when the check bounces. I I don't wanna do that. I wanna be in a posture, a position of receptivity and that's the image that he's drawing here. They are in prayer constantly and and and waiting and on on on God in that in that with that intention and attention being played because prayer is is more here relational posture than it is about praying for outcomes, for asking.
Bill Dogterom:And then in the middle of all of this, somewhere along the line, over the ten days or so, this isn't a Thursday morning prayer meeting, this is a long lingering. Right? They're going out for bagels and coming back and keeping going. They're doing this posture of persistence. He told us to wait.
Bill Dogterom:Oh man, if anything was the hardest thing in the world he had ever told them to do this was it. Right? And in the middle of that, in that middle of that posture without demand, without expectations but with expectancy, Peter something seemingly occurs to him. Wait, maybe he hears again the testimony of the guys who were came back from the road to Emmaus where Jesus met, remember those two guys on the road to Emmaus and explained to them that the son of man, the Messiah had to suffer using Torah, using the prophets and making it clear that that this this was all part of the strategy of of disentangling their pretensions of what Messiah was going to be so that the true Messiah could rise from the rubble, rise from the ashes, rise from the disappointments of their failures and be the Lord of all having been the lamb of God slain. So so so Peter maybe clues into this awareness.
Bill Dogterom:He says amongst the believers a group of about a 120 and that number will become important later on. It's the smallest number you can have, 10 times twelve, twelve being the operative number, that you can gather together to form a new community. You can form a new synagogue with 10. You need a 120 people to form a new community. Bing bing bing bing bing bing bing.
Bill Dogterom:Lucas, but we need somebody to lead the final 10 because the guy who was supposed to lead it cashed in his chips before payday. I need you to hear that. It's really important, really important because in all of the wonder of this story setting us up there is deep sorrow too, Deep tragedy too. And so Peter begins and says, brothers and sisters, the scripture had to be fulfilled which the Holy Spirit spoke long ago through David concerning Judas who served as a guide to those who arrested Jesus. He was one of our number.
Bill Dogterom:He shared in our ministry. That phrase has haunted me. He served as one of our number and shared in our ministry. He was as proximate to Jesus as any of the rest of them were. He heard every word that fell from Jesus' lips in the sermon on the Mount.
Bill Dogterom:He was there as he watched him raise Lazarus from the dead. He was there as he multi he was part of the distribution system when 5,000 men plus women and children were fed with loaves and bread only adequate for a single person's life. He was there. His hands touched the barley loaves as they were disturbed. He watched Jesus and then Peter walk on the Judas was there for all of that.
Bill Dogterom:All of that. And still, still his understanding of what Messiah was supposed to do disabled engagement with who Messiah was supposed to be. He had a clear understanding that Messiah was going to be, as far as we can tell because his nickname, Iscariot, is swordman. He was an assassin along with Judas Iscariot. I mean, Simon the Zealot, the two of them were were were were warriors the liberation of Israel and and so you can feel the political implications of this for for Judas.
Bill Dogterom:If if this if this is this is not what Messiah does, we don't need you. Healing people, fine, whatever. But but what we really need you to do is organize the troops so we can get these Romans out and my my guess is that Judas thought if I just throw a hand grenade under him, if I just kind of push him just to the edge, he will finally get a clue and do what he's supposed to do. Lead us into battle against these forces of occupation because the goal here is to make Israel great again. And he's willing to sacrifice the Jesus who is for the Jesus he wants him to be.
Bill Dogterom:And why does that land so heavily on us, on me? You know why. You know why. You know why. It's it's so easy for us to monetize, to mammonize, to babelize our understanding of Jesus and utilize him for our own purposes.
Bill Dogterom:Maybe not as pretentious and grand, maybe as pretentious and grand. To try and make Jesus the leader of our parade, We'll let him be first but we wanna be right hand and left hand in one form or another. Judas was not the only one who betrayed Jesus. We all did. We were all complicit in his death.
Bill Dogterom:We were all there and watched it happen. And here is this deep, deep tragedy that we want sometimes to utilize the Gospel for our own purpose. This is a case study in disappointed expectations and how crushing they can be in the walk and why do I land on this? Because what we see happening here, hands open, no control. Hands open, no control.
Bill Dogterom:This is not about something, making the garden something. If that's gonna happen, that's gonna be God and nobody but God. Right? And so here's Judas in this in this gap and remember for him this is also for Peter, he's gonna make the case theologically important, 11 disciples does not accurately parallel the 12 tribes of Israel. So Luke is wanting to make the case, we need a twelfth in there first to fill out the 120 that I talked about, but a new community but then also to be an appropriate parallel so that the new Israel, the new community, the new tribe if you will that is arising from from national or political Israel has has that requisite parallels in terms of his theological development.
Bill Dogterom:Luke is gonna play with this, Paul's gonna play with it as the church becomes the logical extension of Israel which raises the question that speaks to our current cultural age about the difference between spiritual Israel and political and military Israel. And, this speaks very clearly to the fact that our primary identity is to the spiritual family of God, the people of God who are Israel in the expressed through the apostolic mission. And here we go and then Luke just fills in his readers, remember he's writing to Theophilus, this sponsor who has enough wealth to pay somebody to tell the story wisely and well for larger distribution and so he wants to explain what happened to Judas. Remember, he's showing up on the scene thirty years later. Whatever happened?
Bill Dogterom:And he tells this sordid heartbreaking story of Judas who takes the money and he and Matthew are in a bit of a tussle as to exactly how this thing went down, but at the end of the day, Judas tapped out before he had a chance to receive the forgiveness that Jesus had offered him. I can't imagine the shame when Sunday morning occurred and Judas realized. I think he was heartbroken from Friday night when Jesus acquiesced to the Roman rather than fought back. I think Judas just had the heart ripped out of him by disappointment and why do I land on that? Because I am convinced that had Judas shown up on Sunday morning maybe he would have come in with Thomas a week later, head hanged low, looking slant eyed at everybody in the room.
Bill Dogterom:Had had Judas been there and Jesus showed up, Judas would have been the first one that Jesus embraced. Why? Peter tells us, David told us all along this is how it had to go down. This is how it had to be. Judas was a player in a game bigger than he was and if he hadn't tapped out, if he had still continued, like Peter by the way who betrayed him as well but Peter didn't have have have maybe the courage, the guts, whatever that Judas did to live through his disappointment.
Bill Dogterom:He showed up, he received forgiveness and a new commission. I wonder what would have happened to Judas if the energy that led to betrayal had been submitted to the lordship of Jesus. And the reason I wanna sit with that is because everybody in this room will at some point in time or other betray Jesus in one way or another. You will be angry at him because his your expectations of him don't match what you think he ought to be doing. He he and and unfortunately with Jesus, I just need to tell you, he will insist on being lord.
Bill Dogterom:He will not dance to the music you play and some of us will be at various times in various ways, not maybe as dramatic as Judas but in various times in various ways, you will cash in your chips and say I'm done. Can I beg you? When that happens, for some of you it's already happened, when that happens, don't quit. Show up, pout in the back if you have to. Show up, fists clenched with anger.
Bill Dogterom:Show up, tears streaming down your face with disappointment in him and in you. Don't quit because if you keep showing up, who knows but what he might restore you to a place and position and your failure will become essential to the furtherance of the gospel. It will become a gateway to brand new things happening and I'll just leave it at that but I want to say that that strategy, that that that invitation, that willingness to step in is is a critical critical part of this of this story. So Peter continuing his speech says it's written in the book of Psalms, may his place be deserted, no one dwell in it but may another take his place. So here's this group of 12 needing to echo Israel, all of the theological implications of that.
Bill Dogterom:So Peter concludes and by the way, what this means is theologically again, that Luke is already understanding that this gathered community are the receivers of the promise given to Abraham. This is the new community that is arising out of generation from Abraham and remember what the blessing of Abraham was. What the purpose of Abraham was. It was to bless the nations of the world. To bless the nations of the world and unfortunately what happened was that Israel enjoyed being blessed but not so that they could be a blessing.
Bill Dogterom:They hoarded the blessing and like the manna stored for the second day, the blessing rotted them. Why do I say that brothers and sisters? Because this is not about us. This is not about Sundays. If this doesn't translate to Monday and you being kind and generous and gracious at your places of employment, this is idle and a waste of time.
Bill Dogterom:That's why they only ask me to show up here every once in a while. You with me though? It's really important, really important because these are well meaning people. These are well meaning people who who will mistake the powerful move of the spirit as God's approval of them and treasure it as if it were theirs. Rather than And he actually, as it goes down, I think we're gonna get to this, he has to kill one of them to get him out of town.
Bill Dogterom:They didn't leave town. Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, ends of the earth. Jerusalem, oh man, this is feeling pretty good. Let's build something, let's build something here. Let's build something here.
Bill Dogterom:You're gonna do that? I'm preaching that? Oh, good. That'll be a good Sunday for you to go to some other place. But the point of course is what?
Bill Dogterom:You're not in control of anything important here. So as it lands, as we sit with this, we want to recognize, Peter says, we need we we we've gotta we've gotta fill out this kind of prophetic awareness fulfilling the scripture in in a way that then sets us up for whatever it is that's coming, that's the promise of the father. And the way they did it is just absolutely astonishing. Absolutely remarkable. It's necessary for us to choose somebody who's been with us the whole time.
Bill Dogterom:What? Somebody who has been with us the whole time from John's baptism before Peter, James, John were ever even called. From the get go, when John was baptized, somebody who was part of that crew and who stayed with us anonymous, unknown, unchosen and is a resurrection witness. We need somebody like that. Of the people that were included in that number, two of them were selected.
Bill Dogterom:Matthias? Ring a bell? No? Right? And then and then and then Joseph called Ring a bell?
Bill Dogterom:No? If you can't get good at the anonymous nobody faithfulness, you will be out of position when coach says I need you to put you in. If if you are angling for position and angling for power and angling for place and angling and this is true of churches, it's true of individuals in churches. If if if you wanna be all that in a bag of chips so somebody knows who you are, you've missed the point. You've missed the point because to be honest most of life isn't like this.
Bill Dogterom:Most of life is one foot in front of the other. Somebody asked me the other day, how can you be married for forty eight years? You can't. You just can't, you can't. All you can be married is a day at a time and do it for forty eight years with or without reward, with or without privileged outcomes, with or without good things to move you on your way.
Bill Dogterom:So like Judas, these two guys and probably others including women were witnesses of everything that had happened. They were part of the conversation. They were part of And in fact, I would argue that probably most of these 120 people could have filled that role in terms of those baseline qualifications. And so they prayed, Lord, you know who we need, you know what this is about, you know who you want in this role so where's the dice? Matthias, it's you.
Bill Dogterom:And where does Joseph go? Don't know. Where does Matthias go? Don't know. Never hear of the dude again.
Bill Dogterom:He he and then gone. It's like it it's like it's it's it's like, wait wait, is it doesn't he have like some like mojo going? I mean, come on. Come on. You know, it's like Rudy, the the the, you know, the the the the water boy who gets put in and and No.
Bill Dogterom:No. No. No. Just sign here. Good.
Bill Dogterom:Thanks. Please be seated. Yeah. What And why? Why?
Bill Dogterom:Why? Because the kingdom of God is not comprised of apostolic leaders. The kingdom of God is comprised of nothing nobody servants who embrace nothing and nobody ness. Who just show up, who do the thing, whose more consists in obedience, whose more consists in faithfulness. That anonymous normal in faithful obscurities cuts against the culture that we live in especially the spiritual culture that we live in.
Bill Dogterom:We wanna be special. We wanna be unique. We wanna be blessed in a way that causes our star to shine slightly brighter than anybody else's star and in that we disqualify ourselves from usefulness. Because when God doesn't make your star shine bright you're gonna figure out a way to do it yourself and then you're gonna wonder why you burn out and you're gonna wonder. So the invitation is to this to this and by the way did you know it's okay to not be chosen.
Bill Dogterom:Here's Joseph equally qualified. He's nobody's agitated. He just disappears back into the woodwork where he apparently does faithful stuff and by the way even the 12 who are chosen, most of their stories are not included in the text of scripture. I don't know what happened to Barnabas. I don't know what well, yeah, Barnabas we know what happened to him but I don't know what happened to Thomas.
Bill Dogterom:Thomas, I'd I'd love to know what happens to Eeyore when he gets saved. I wanna know what happens to church tradition, I get that, I get that. But in terms of the story that God wants to tell, they become anonymous and faithful lives poured out and why is it important that we land on this? Because if this doesn't translate to that what are doing? We don't need another movement.
Bill Dogterom:We don't need revival. What are you doing with what you got? Can he trust you with it? Can he trust you with it? So the invitation as we land here is to recognize this foundation of anonymous faithfulness sets the stage so that next week with this powerful breathing of the spirit into the gathered body can erupt a faithful community shaped by obedience.
Bill Dogterom:The challenge is faithfulness and following, showing up whether nobody, whether people recognize you or know your name or not, becoming somebody that God can trust. Becoming somebody that God can trust. So let's pray. Oh Lord, as we sit with this, text, this morning, it becomes quickly clear that this is for somebody else. Oh lord, as silly as that sounds, that's my initial reaction so often.
Bill Dogterom:I wanna be I wanna be special to you. I wanna be useful to you. Thank you for your kind and compassionate, embrace of us in our anonymity, in the normal of everyday life. Thank you Lord for the ways in which you embrace us and thank you for the gleam in your eye that lets us know we are precious to you and that that may never be known by anybody else but it needs to be enough that we are precious to you. I pray for my brothers and sisters oh Lord and as we lean into response, my sense is that there are some of us who who have been disappointed, who have also been a disappointment, who have, maybe betrayal is too strong, maybe it isn't but whether publicly or in their heart have, disqualified themselves like Judas and are wondering if all they have is to creep around the edges and wonder if they'll be included.
Bill Dogterom:I pray that even this morning, Lord, you would give them courage. First of all, just not to quit, but then also to press in and to feel your embrace. We ask this, Lord, in Jesus name. Amen.
Intro/Outro:For more information, visit us at garden.church.