Preface

Eight days ago was Australia Day 2013, although unintentionally, in many ways this could be an Australia Day address.

Introduction

Travel outside Australia helps me to understand how radically different our spirituality is to that in many other parts of the world. Last time I preached here I shared about how extraordinarily open people are in Africa in talking about God. One very different episode at the commencement of that trip however sticks in my memory. As we were going through Perth International Airport the customs officer looked at my departure card which had “teacher” under employment, he asked me, “What do you teach?”, when I said “Theology.” he gave me such a strange look that I asked him, “Do you know what that means?”, then he said “Yes, it’s all about myths and legends.” This highlighted for me that our country compared to most of the world is a spiritual desert. Just a few weeks ago something happened outside the same airport which throws more light on this problem. We had just got off a plane from S.E. Asia where respect for authority is very high. Catching a taxi home the first thing I noticed was how dismissive the driver was to the authority of the official at the taxi rank, and then he started speaking about our Prime Minister derogatively as Juliar Gillard.

Since all authority, from parents through to Prime Ministers, is given by God, we must confess that our national disrespect for authorities reveals a blatant disregard for the honour of God (cf. Rom 13:1-2; 1:21). This disrespectful culture has penetrated the Church in many subtle ways. I was speaking with a pastor the other day about Paul’s command in 1 Timothy, “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Saviour,” (1 Timothy 2:1-3 ESV). Outside of the traditional churches it is extremely rare to find regular prayers for politicians, judges, police, school teachers, parents and so in our churches. This is deeply revealing that the people of God also lack respect for the divine Word. Overall we have failed to be salt, light and leaven in our nation (Matt 5:13-16; 13:33).

The complexities of our national history have left Australia with a crisis in moral and spiritual authority. Much like the days of the judges of Israel, “In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” (Judges 17:6; 21:25). There is little or no sense in popular culture that God has a rightful authority to speak into our lives and command us to keep his laws. Australians hate being “told what to do” by anyone.  From a biblical perspective the nation has a crisis of disrespect for divine Fatherhood. Since “judgement begins at the household of God” (1 Pet 4:17) we must listen to what our Father is saying to us. The divine strategy to heal our land (cf. 2 Chron 7:14) must involve the restoration of the Church as the light of Christ to our society (Matt 5:14; Phil 2:15). The nation can never respect God’s authority unless it first sees this authority honoured amongst us. We can communicate Christ to others only to the degree we appreciate his authority in our own lives. The way forward out of this national disaster is to hear from Jesus in the way Jesus heard the Father speaking to him.

Fulfilment in the Son

When Jesus appeared on the preaching scene in Galilee there was something radically different about him compared to other teachers; “And they went into Capernaum, and immediately on the Sabbath he entered the synagogue and was teaching. And they were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as the scribes. And immediately there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit. And he cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God.” (Mark 1:21-24 ESV).

The secret of the powerful presence of Jesus is contained in his first recorded messages, “Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.””(Mark 1:14-15 ESV); and similarly in Luke’s Gospel, “And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor….Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”(Luke 4:17-18, 21 ESV). The faithful synagogue attendees at Nazareth had heard this passage from Isaiah read many times before, but it was Jesus’ claim of fulfilment that stirred them up into a frenzied mob (people who were long term neighbours and friends) that tried to kill him (Luke 4:28-29). This proves to be a pattern in Jesus’ life. At the root of the unique authority that Jesus exercised throughout his life was his sense of fulfilling the Word of God.

Before however he had spoken about himself in Nazareth and Capernaum he had heard from his heavenly Father who spoke at his baptism; ““You are my beloved Son, with you I am well pleased”” (Luke 3:22). A host of Old Testament prophetic texts underlie these words – Abraham is commanded to take his “beloved son” Isaac (Gen 22:2) and sacrifice him to the LORD; God’s soul is “well pleased” with the Servant in Isaiah 42:1 who will ministry to the nations, and in the great messianic psalm. Psalm 2, Messiah is told, ““You are my son, today I have become your father.”” (Ps 2:7).  When Christ heard his Father speak these words over him he knew absolutely that everything prophesied about salvation in scripture was about to be fulfilled in him. All the hopes of Israel – of prophets, priests, kings and pious pray-ers were about to come true. The Spirit was poured out upon him at his baptism for the purpose of fulfilment (Luke 3:22). As a man Jesus “full of the Holy Spirit” (Luke 4:1) Jesus was ablaze with an intense expectation and assurance that all of his beloved Father’s will is to be accomplished through him. His complete sense of worthiness as a Son comes through the revelation that he is the entrusted Fulfiller of all the plans of the Father. This is the foundation of his authority.

Christ’s consciousness of fulfilling God’s revealed will accompanied him throughout his ministry. In dialogue with enraged Pharisees he replies “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me,” (John 5:39 ESV). Then when once again they were plotting to kill him (John 10:31-33 cf. 5:18) the Lord declared “Scripture cannot be broken” (John 10:35). Jesus most intense uses of the expression, “Scripture must be fulfilled in me….For what is written about me has its fulfillment.” (Luke 22:37. Cf. Matt 26:54 ESV) are not however in the context of surviving the plots of his enemies, they have to do with the suffering of the cross.

Let me pause to say the imperative of fulfilling scripture which gripped Jesus’ inner life has nothing in common with fate, determinism or the sort of useless speculations that were around last year concerning the Mayan calendar. Jesus’ constant awareness that he is the One in whom all the promises of God will find their fullness comes through his consciousness of being God’s Son. His insistence that prophecy must be fulfilled has nothing to do with inevitability, but a sense of identity that he is the Word of God who brings to completion all previous words of God.  That he is the Son of God through whom the Father will restore all things underlies his consciousness of authority.

This comes across with astounding clarity when he says to those who will soon hand him over to death; “For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father.”” (John 10:17-18 ESV). When the temple guards who were sent to arrest Jesus came back empty handed they explained, ““No one ever spoke like this man!”” (John 7:46). No one ever spoke like Jesus because no one before or since had the authority bestowed on them by God’s prophetic word both to sacrifice themselves for the sake of God’s kingdom and to raise themselves from the dead. Christ’s sense of authority was without measure (cf. John 3:33-34) but it had to be stretched to the limit in order to save US. The greatest test of Jesus’ ability to fulfil his Father’s comes at the cross..

We see him praying in Gethsemane, ““My soul is very sorrowful, even to death…he fell on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him…. “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.””(Mark 14:34-36 ESV). The depth of this struggle to obey sharpens Jesus’ awareness that the violence of crucifixion is how things must be accomplished in the divine plan[1]. When the soldiers come to arrest him he confidently states, ““Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then should the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so?””(Matthew 26:53-54 ESV)[2]. With such a strong consciousness that he is doing the will of God it seems impossible at first sight to explain the depths of Christ’s agonised confusion on the cross.

“And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice…“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”” (Mark 15:33-34 ESV). Hidden in this agonising cry is a deep mystery that contains the key to all spiritual authority. Jesus himself had prophesied to his closest disciples that he must fulfil the words of Isaiah, “For I tell you that this Scripture must be fulfilled in me: ‘And he was numbered with the transgressors.’ For what is written about me has its fulfilment.”” (Luke 22:37 cf. Isa 53:12). To be “numbered with the transgressors” means to bear the sin of the world (Isa 53:12b); it means that Jesus accepted full identification with all sinners, with us who probably consider ourselves “little sinners”[3], with those “great sinners” who were being crucified at his right and left, and with those “greatest sinners” who were crucifying him. The LORD warned centuries before, “those who honour me I will honour, and those who despise me shall be lightly esteemed” (1 Sam 2:30), and in another prophet, ““A son honours his father, and a servant his master. If then I am a father, where is my honour? And if I am a master, where is my fear? says the Lord of hosts to you …who despise my name.”” (Mal 1:6). We certainly live in a nation that dishonours and despises the name of the Lord. To atone for our sin of dishonouring God as Creator and Father, Jesus himself must go through the ultimate experience of dishonour.

Since Jesus is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world (1 Pet 1:20 cf. Rev 13:8) the crucifixion is the moment of fulfilment which carries the full weight of God’s eternal plan to redeem the world. In order to redeem a world where darkened humanity refuses to honour God as Creator and Father (Rom 1:21), Jesus must enter that place where it seems like nothing that God has ever promised will be fulfilled. Jesus must become the prodigal who feels that  he is no longer worthy to be called God’s Son (cf. Luke 15:19, 21). God has died to him as a Father. This is the moment when Jesus’ experiences no authority to testify, that point where nothing miraculous can be seen about his life and the enemies of God appear to triumph. A sacrifice any less than this could never satisfy God’s worthiness nor set our consciences at rest.

Only in this way, in being numbered with sinners as the scriptures proclaimed must happen, can Jesus come to sense that everything is accomplished. “After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), “I thirst.” A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit”. (John 19:28-30 ESV).

Raised in Honour

Jesus was “crucified in weakness but (now) lives by the power of God” (2 Cor 13:4). Only a person who has fully encountered the power of sin, Satan and death, who has died and been raised again, can bear testimony that all of God’s promises have been fulfilled (cf. 2 Cor 1:20). Death and resurrection opens up the way for Jesus to enter completely into the realm of testimony that all has been fulfilled, that God keeps his promises and assures all our hopes.   This is why Jesus can proclaim, “All authority has been given to me…” (Matt 28:18).

The fulfilment of all the Father’s words/commands/promises in the resurrection is the climax of Jesus’ Sonship. This is how Paul puts it at the commencement of his longest exposition of the gospel, the letter to the Romans, “Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord,” (Romans 1:1-4 ESV). The centre point of this passage, that Jesus “was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead” contains the key to what the resurrection meant for Jesus. If a cross is the perfect human design for a dishonourable death (cf. Gal 3:13), resurrection is God’s eternal plan to honour his Son.

What the resurrection meant for Jesus is incalculable. The resurrection is the Father’s declaration to Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit that he has perfectly fulfilled all that was ever expected of him as a Son. Christ has triumphantly entered into a realm beyond the power of evil because of his unconquerable ever obedient Sonship (cf. Rom 5:19). When Jesus proclaims to his apostles “All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me”, this is a declaration of perfected Sonship. Everything that the Father ever spoken about Jesus in the law, prophets and writings has been fulfilled. The resurrection means for Jesus that all God ever purposed and promised for humanity has been completed in him. He has entered as a human being into the realm of Lordship which previously belonged to God alone (Acts 2:36).  He shares the sovereignty of the Father over sin, Satan, death and freely offers salvation and forgiveness in his name (Phil 2:9-11; Acts 2:21, 38; 3:6, 16 etc.). Jesus has been counted worthy to share “the name that is above every name” (Phil 2:9), “above”, not in the sense of location, but of an inestimable dignity and worthiness.

In the book of Revelation where the ascended life of Christ is most fully displayed in scripture, there is one thing of which the heavenly choir is convinced.  Before the authority of Christ is exercised across the stretches of the globe [which includes us/Australia] they proclaim, ““Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honour and glory and blessing!”” (Revelation 5:12 ESV).

Jesus is energized in the knowledge that is the One in whom all God’s promises in the Word/scriptures are fulfilled (2 Cor 1:19-20). He is unashamed to be the revelation of the faithfulness of God as Father. This is an excitement and boast he shares with us. The New Testament makes it abundantly clear that the presence of the glorified Christ in the midst of his people is the key to their authority to proclaim him.

Worthy of Witness

When Jesus met his dispirited disciples on the road to Emmaus he pointed them to the testimony of Scripture; “And he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.” (Luke 24:25-27 ESV).  they reported in their own words, ““Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?”” (Luke 24:32 ESV).  The messianic promises in the scriptures with which they had been familiar since childhood had suddenly came to life and burned like fire in the presence of the Lord[4]. Surely this is exactly what the Spirit of God would do in the Church today- set our hearts on fire through the testimony of scripture! The sense of the fulfilment of the scriptures through Jesus’ death and resurrection – for this is what all disciples are confronted with through the Bible–always contains an urge to testify of completion. This empowers the apostolic preaching.

Peter interprets the cross in terms of prophetic fulfilment, “But what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled….       And all the prophets who have spoken, from Samuel and those who came after him, also proclaimed these days.”” (Acts 3:18, 24 ESV). Paul’s own summary of the gospel stresses the fulfilment of scripture: “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,” (1 Corinthians 15:3-4 ESV). The Christians of New Testament times carried within them a sense that what God has promised from long ago had been completed in Jesus and was being accomplished in them. The early church’s sense that what God had done in Christ was being continued in them was the source of their authority to proclaim the gospel.

This is powerfully illustrated in the experience of the first apostles. The book of Acts recounts how Peter and John were beaten for testifying to Jesus; “Then they left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonour for the name. And every day, in the temple and from house to house, they did not cease teaching and preaching that the Christ is Jesus.” (Acts 5:41-42 ESV). These words “counted worthy to suffer dishonour” may seem strange for us, but they echo Jesus life as one worthy to suffer in the cause of his Father. Our authority to testify will be in direct proportion to the revelation we have that rejection, abuse and suffering for the sake of Christ is a testimony to our worthiness in Him. This is the worthiness of being suffering sons. Those who suffer as sons of God will most definitely be reckoned worthy to experience the power and presence of his resurrection life (2 Cor 12:9-10; 13:4; Phil 3:10).

Proclaiming the Son

What I am speaking of is not restricted to apostles or some special class of Christian. John begins his Gospel with the bold announcement, “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the authority to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” (John 1:12-13). Every child of God shares in the authority of Christ’s sonship. Just as the reality of his authority was communicated to Jesus from heaven through the Spirit, the Spirit is the one who testifies to us of the authority of our sonship; “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.” (Rom 8:11).  The “Spirit of sonship” (Rom 8:15) given to us is the Spirit of resurrection power and presence. As Jesus has fulfilled the Word of his Father in the power of the Spirit, so he gives us the Spirit so that we might fulfil his Word.

Paul places in parallel two imperatives “be filled with the Spirit” (Eph 5:18) and “let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly” (Col 3:16 cf. Eph 1:22-23; Col 2:9-10). To be filled with the Spirit means to be full of the Word, not simply in the sense of being able to quote the Bible, but constrained to testify of the worthiness of the Son of God revealed to us through holy scripture (2 Cor 5:14). To be filled with the Spirit is to speak the word of God boldly, that is, with great authority (Acts 4:13, 27, 31; 13:46; 14:3; 18:26; 28:31). This is the exercise of authority that our spiritually poverty stricken nation needs today.

I have been praying for some time that God would find a Way to speak to our nation; that he always has a way is finely illustrated by the following unforgettable story. Two young Moravians in their early twenties heard of an island in the West Indies where an atheist slave owner had vowed and declared that the gospel would never be preached. When they prayed for a way to preach to the slaves the Lord showed them what to do. They sold themselves to the into lifelong slavery and set out on a ship never to return home. As the ship left its’ pier their families and friends broke into weeping for they knew they would never see their loved ones again. Then the Spirit of the Lord strengthened the young men with a word of testimony. One lad with his arm linked through the arm of his fellow, raised his hand and shouted across the waters the last words that were ever heard from them, words that they were to become the call of Moravian missions, “MAY THE LAMB THAT WAS SLAIN RECEIVE THE REWARD OF HIS SUFFERING!” I am certain that many of the slaves on that island came to Christ. But how about our country?

Speaking “tongue in cheek”, on their first missionary journey Paul and Barnabas came across a group of “Australians” who in the apostles words, “judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life” (Acts 13:46). In their blatant disrespect for every form of moral and spiritual authority our nation has judged itself unworthy of eternal life. God’s Word, “‘Far be it from me; for those who honour me I will honour, and those who despise me shall be treated with contempt.’” (1 Sam 2:30) lies heavily upon our land. This should induce in all believers a great holy fear for the lost condition of our people and even more for the sake of the Lord’s holy name (cf. Prov 9:10; 2 Cor 7:1; Rev 15:4). He does have a way to bring revival to our land, and in spiritual warfare circles it is called “coming in the opposite spirit” (Christians do love jargon) e.g. where there is pride come in humility, where there is fear come in faith etc.

As I was out praying this morning I was overcome with a tremendous sense of dissatisfaction and found myself crying out to the Lord Jesus as the Lamb of God: “You’re more worthy than this!”, more worthy than the state of my own life, more worthy than the state of the Church, more worthy than the state of the world and more worthy than the state of the whole universe. I believe that it is in the gap between our sense of the true worthiness of Christ and our failure to see him truly honoured that the Spirit of God will be outpoured to fulfil all the scriptures say are true concerning Christ, to empower and authorise our witness to Jesus as the Son of God.

Application and Conclusion

In the examples used in this sermon we cannot but help notice that the sense of fulfilment that energises witness is most intense in an environment of suffering for the sake of the kingdom of God; or to put it slightly differently, suffering for the sake of the honour of God’s name. This was true in Jesus’ own life, in that of the apostles and in the case of the Moravians.

God is today calling his Church in Australia to a life of martyrdom, but not as we usually understand it. The English “martyr” comes from the Greek word martus that simply means “witness”. To be a “martyr” simply means to be a witness. However as we travel through the New Testament by the time the book of Revelation the link between witness and suffering is incredibly strong (Rev 1:9; 11:7; 12:11; 20:4). To live a martyr’s life-style is to live a life that embraces suffering (not necessarily death) for the cause of Christ that “the testimony of Jesus” might be heard and known by all. However things are going for us, easy or hard, if we decide to honour Christ by life or by death we will never be ashamed to bear him witness in the midst a nation that lives as though it has been forsaken by God (Phil 1:20)