Paul and the Mission of the Church 22.9.2013
Introduction
Jesus said “I will build my church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it.” (Matt 16:18), but by numbers, finances and age profiles the Anglican Church in Western Australia is in a state of seeming irreversible decline. The cause of this great contradiction can only be that by its inward looking disposition and quest for social relevance our church has marginalised the presence of the Son of God. Today across the Western world the Spirit of Christ is challenging the foundations of a church system that has dominated Christendom for centuries (cf. Rev 2:7, 11 etc.). The section of The Story set for today[1] titled Paul’s Mission is particularly helpful in illuminating the true spiritual dimensions of the current church crisis.
Paul’s never for a moment considered that the Church could be dying. He was a man totally grasped by the power of the gospel (Rom 1:16 cf. 1 Cor 9:16) and his motivation for mission was unmistakeable; “Christ’s love compels us because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. 15 And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for Christ who died for them and was raised again.” (2 Cor 5:14-15). The spiritual forces which converted Paul are exactly the same ones that the Anglican Church must experience if it is to follow in his footsteps as a missionary church for Christ. Paul was a Pharisee. Key to understanding Paul’s conversion is his pre-Christina life as a Pharisee.
Paul the Persecutor
The Pharisees were the most pious group in Judaism in the time of Jesus, they “searched the scriptures” (John 5:39-40), prayed regularly (Matt 6:5; Luke 18:10), tithed everything (Matt 23:23) and were involved in missions (Matt 23:15). It was firm faith in the strength of their religious practices which blinded them to the glory of God that came in Christ (John 1:14, 16; 5:44). Here is how Paul describes his religious convictions before he met Jesus; “if others have reason for confidence in their own efforts, I have even more! 5 I was circumcised when I was eight days old. I am a pure-blooded citizen of Israel and a member of the tribe of Benjamin—a Hebrew of Hebrews! a member of the Pharisees, who demand the strictest obedience to the Jewish law. 6 I was so zealous that I harshly persecuted the church. I obeyed the law of God without fault.” (Phil 3:4-6). Before his encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus Paul was totally confident that he was serving God with a good conscience (Acts 23:1), but his religious self-assurance was his greatest problem.
Meeting Jesus
Paul had been present fully approved of the brutal stoning which made Stephen the first Christian martyr (Acts 6:15- 7:58; 8:2). His zeal for God matched that of the religious terrorists of today. Only something out of this world could turn Paul around 180 degrees from a hater of Christians into the most effective missionary of all time. The readings I have chosen for today[2] highlight the status of the Jesus who confronted Paul on the Damascus road in a way we rarely imagine him. Let me explain.
Decades ago I was deeply impacted by the book Living With Jesus Today by Juan Carlos Ortiz. In the book he explains how many Christians have had their minds filled with opinions about Jesus rather than being led to a transforming encounter with the life of Christ himself. It is such a failure to fully teach Christ that robs many sincere believers of their true spiritual authority and is at the root of the decline of Anglicanism today. As Ortiz says, our need is for “a new generation of believers who know that the church is centred around a person who lives in them.” But what sort of a person? We need a revelation that the Jesus who lives in us is not “the bearded and sandaled one” of the four Gospels (x2). Jesus certainly performed all the miracles recorded in the Gospels (John 21:25) and taught with wisdom and authority like no other person (John 7:46), but it is the exaltation of Jesus to heaven that provides the perspective for the preaching in the New Testament (Acts 1:11; 2:25, 33-34; 3:21; 5:31). The revolutionary Jesus who met Paul on the road to Damascus was not the confined to the limits we read of in the Gospels; Paul met the glorified heavenly Son of God. Let me expand.
The 12 apostles enjoyed face to face fellowship with Jesus during his earthly ministry and continued to converse and eat with him after his resurrection from the dead (John 21:1-21). But Paul’s experience of Jesus left him blind, broken and unable to eat and drink for three days[3]. After decades of zealously serving God and Judaism as he best knew how Paul’s vision of Jesus changed him forever; he had a revelation of a heavenly human being (1 Cor 15:48-49) and so could no longer think of himself “from a human point of view” (2 Cor 5:11). In his confrontation with the heavenly humanity of Christ Paul received a revelation of a complete “new creation” which was his, and our, future destiny (2 Cor 5:17). The visitation he experienced on the road totally expanded his understanding of human identity.
What Jesus shared with Paul was the measure of the extent of the transformation of his own humanity (x2), in biblical language Jesus shared his “glory”. Once Paul understood that in glimpsing the glorification of Jesus he was seeing his own future destiny (Phil 3:21) his heart was so captured by Christ that he could not be silent (Gal 1:15-16). The overwhelming love revealed in the death and glorification of the Son of God for us became Paul’s sole motivation for mission, “Christ’s love leaves us no choice” (2 Cor 5:11).
Where he had been a self righteous Pharisee now there was a passion to share in Jesus’ life transformation. “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20 ESV); “I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death, 11 so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead!” (Phil 3:10-11).
As Jesus was willing to endure anything that men and women might receive eternal life Paul felt the same. Here are his words from prison, “it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death.” (Phil 1:20). Paul’s controlling passion, and the passion of all who have glimpsed Christ’s glory, is the magnification of Jesus as Lord and Saviour in the lives of lost people, whatever the cost. A faltering church needs to meet Jesus once again.
The Church Has Failed You
The unconverted Paul found his assurance in religious tradition; today many are assured by the tradition of the Church, the beauty of the liturgy, the ability to hold Jesus in the frame of the scriptures or even their own ability to pull the Bible apart. Such things are robbing the people of God of their true spiritual power. We desperately need a radical re-conversion to the absolute centrality of Christ. Here is how Paul describes his religious conversion, “But whatever gain I had [as a Pharisee], I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish/dung, in order that I may gain Christ” (Philippians 3:7-8 ESV). Everything – family, friends, fame, finances, without Jesus is worthless. Towards the end of his life the apostle warned that “there will be terrible times in the last days…people…will have a form of religion but deny its power” (2 Tim 3:1, 5). It is possible to do church well but not know the life transforming power of God.
When I was lecturing theology I grew accustomed to the fact that each fresh bunch of students would be terribly ignorant of the scriptures and the gospel. I never held these students responsible for their ignorance for they had been held back by the superficial teaching in the churches. Likewise, generations of Anglicans have been kept in ignorance by sub- biblical teaching that has failed to empower them for mission (cf. Matt 7:1-13; Col 2:8; 2 Tim 3:5). Ignorance itself is no great obstacle to Christ, here is a word of encouragement from Paul. “Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief.” (1 Tim 1:13). Whilst the Lord infallibly has mercy on the ignorant he always opposes the proud (James 4:6; 1 Pet 5:5).
I clearly remember at a clergy conference in the eastern states a discussion about the difference between Anglicans and Pentecostals; our bishop compared the two groups to a glass of beer. “They have the head of froth” he remarked, “but we have the beer itself.” That diocese has since been devastated by sex scandals and is in terminal decline, but the Pentecostal denomination he ridiculed has exploded in size. The one and only thing that can reform, renew and revive the Anglican Church is a radical encounter with Jesus that will turn things around 180 degrees. This will require dealing with the great unspoken problem that paralyses testimony and mission, the central issue is shame.
Shameless
When Adam and Eve fell into sin they lost the wonderful experience of the presence of God (Rom 3:23) and hid their faces from the LORD as a sign of their shame and covered over with fig leaves (Gen 3:8 cf. Rev 6:16). Before he met Jesus, Paul hid his shame under the fig leaf of religion. When he met Jesus shame was turned to boldness, a confidence which is promised to us all, “So our faces are not covered. They show the bright glory of the Lord, as the Lord’s Spirit makes us more and more like our glorious Lord.” (2 Cor 3:18). Paralysis in testimony is a sign of shame, boldness in witnessing to the name of Jesus is a sign of experiencing the power of Christ’s glorious presence (Acts 9:27-28; 13:46; 14:3; 19:8; 26:16). Let me share a little of my earliest Christian experience.
When I became a believer I was a “Jesus freak” who could not stop talking to people about Jesus and then I sought out a church. The one thing I cannot forget was the unembarrassed testimony of the people who attended the first church I belonged to. The first time I went there a man introduced himself as an ex homosexual, the piano player spoke of being an ex-alcoholic and the powerful presence of God was tangible in the services. My immediate family were so worried that I had joined a dangerous cult that they turned up at church to protect me, the result was that they were all converted and baptised there. What was happening then can surely happen now.
Let’s be honest, most Christians find it difficult to testify openly to Jesus but have no idea how to get over this embarrassment. When the Anglican Church worldwide declared the 1990’s the “decade of evangelism” there was an impressive launch in the Perth Concert Hall but nothing ever changed in the area of evangelism; for “the kingdom of God is not a matter of words but of power” (1 Cor 4:20). Only the presence of Jesus can empower the people of God to fearless witness. Only the Holy Spirit can give us the power to speak of the heavenly Lord of glory (Acts 2:33; 1 Pet 1:12; 1 Cor 2:8; 2 Tim 1:7 cf. 2 Cor 3:17). I have asked the Lord about the problems traditional Anglicans have with evangelism and have shared what I am about to say with Alison as the Evangelism Enabler of the diocese. This is not an easy word and one that may lead to misunderstanding.
Most Christians who have never led another adult person to Christ deep down feel bad about this and feel like they are spiritual failures in the area of evangelism. You may be able to talk about the “the Church” but struggle to use the name of Jesus in conversation with your unsaved friends, neighbours and family. To feel this way is to struggle and suffer like the barren women in the Old Testament, for the honour of having spiritual children is much like the blessing of natural children. There is a tragic outcome to this sort of spiritual barrenness. Often embarrassment about the failure to spiritually reproduce drives sincere believers into efforts to keeping the Church going through acts of service, fund raising and the like. The fruitlessness of these sincere but confused efforts is visible all across this diocese. Our great need is to meet Jesus in a new way; he is the one who said, “I will build my church” (Matt 16:18).
Humanly inspired religious activity does not abolish shame, it intensifies it. The only remedy for the spiritual paralysis that religiously induced shame brings is a revelation of “the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor 4:6). If the presence of Jesus in his days on earth dissolved the shame of tax collectors, prostitutes, poor and sick people how much more must the presence of the Christ of glory free us? We need to experience Jesus in a way that will completely transform our perspective on the church.
Seeing the Church
Paul’s encounter with the glorified Christ gave him insight into the true dimensions of the Church as Jesus’ body. When he speaks of the call to “attain …to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,” (Eph 4:12-13 ESV) he proclaims that the dimensions of the Church in her maturity can only be measured by the dimensions of the glory of Jesus himself. The failure of the Church to witness effectively to Christ is a sure sign that we have cut Jesus down to manageable and digestible proportions!
The comfortable Western Church has lost the vision of being totally enclosed in the sacrificial love of God in Christ. The church today may well talk about the restoration of the ministry of apostles, prophets and evangelists, but unless it believes once again in revelation from heaven she will never see herself as Jesus sees her (Eph 3:5) and never behave as the wondrous church of the new covenant. If a holy and glorious church is God’s call (Eph 5:26-27) we must ask, “What is holding us back?” The answer always involves idolatry.
The Cost
Idols are powerful counterfeits of the presence of God which impart to human beings a sense of glory and beauty that should come from Jesus alone. There is a particular idol that must be confronted if the Anglican Church of Western Australia is to become a growing missional church that brings glory to Christ by bringing lost people to him as Lord and Saviour. This idol involves the liturgy. Anglicans know how to do liturgy beautifully, the words of the Prayer Book are wonderfully crafted and stately, but the splendour of the liturgy is powerless to change and renew human hearts unless it is indwelt by the power of the presence of the Spirit of the glorified and heavenly Christ. The separation of ceremony from Christ is at the heart of the crisis of contemporary Anglicanism. For many church goers the liturgy has become a substitute for Jesus. The tradition/liturgy of the church did not bleed for us on the cross, rise from the dead on the third day and ascend into the glory of heaven (cf. 1 Cor 1:13). You cannot measure the fullness of the glory of God by the church or its liturgy! To think the Lord could be contained by the words and wisdom of men was Paul’s great pre-conversion error, and it is the error which is strangling the Anglican Church to the point of suffocation!
When Paul became a Jesus’ follower he lost everything for the sake of Christ (2 Timothy 3:12, ESV). The question for traditional Anglican churches in Perth is simple, “How much of our human formed Anglican identity are we willing to lose in order for the glory of Christ to be revealed through us?”
Conclusion
Over the years Donna and I have cared for and counselled many people who as children were deprived of food, love, nurture and discipline. All these people struggle to understand and accept the fullness and authority that Jesus came to bring (John 10:10); for them spiritual deprivation and poverty are normal (cf. Amos 8:11). This is the condition of the mass of Anglican churches in Western Australia. During his days on earth Jesus promised to satisfy the hungry and to give his Spirit to those who asked him (Matt 5:6; Luke 11:11-13). The fulfilment of these promises however did not come during his days in this world but only after he returned “to the right hand of power” “in the glory of his Father” (Mark 14:62; 8:38-9:1). The heavenly Christ who Paul met on the road to Damascus invites us to share in the gift of life and power which he shared with Paul that day. But like the apostle we must come to Jesus confessing our spiritual ignorance and deprivation, and we must come recognising that all who receive an insight into the greatness of Christ will become missionaries to their family, friends, neighbours and workmates. As with Paul this will mean risk and rejection.
As Anglicans we are familiar with the words, “I turn to Christ”. The Lord Christ calls us today, not only as a congregation, but on behalf of the Anglican Church of Western Australia to confess that we have minimised Jesus and maximised ourselves, we have focused on maintenance and lost the vision of mission; we have abandoned Christ’s own call to bring the gospel to every human being, whatever the cost. Today may we all “turn to Christ”, not the limited Christ of the Gospels, nor the Jesus whom the Church has tied down so tightly, but the Lord who has been exalted to heaven and who longs to share with us his glory.