Resurrection Call Easter 1988

I'd like to begin by reading from Mark chapter 1 starting at verse 16. And passing along by the sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew, the brother of Simon, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, Follow me, and I will make you to become fishers of men.

And immediately they left their nets and followed him. And going on a little farther, he saw James, the son of Zebedee, and John, his brother, who were in the boat, mending the nets. And immediately he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants and followed him.

He went out again beside the sea, and all the crowd gathered about him, and he taught them. And as he passed on, he saw Levi, the son of Alphaeus, sitting at the tax office, and he said to him, Follow me. And he arose and followed him.

Most of us in this gallery can look back on a time when we also heard that call, Follow me. We can remember when the voice of Jesus first became clear to us. And we knew that the moment had come for us to make a change.

Now, for these disciples, it was a wonderful change. Their thirst for God, their hunger for the kingdom, was satisfied as they left everything and followed him and watched Jesus and listened to him and learned. They knew that they were highly privileged, that they were seeing things that prophets and kings had longed to see and had not seen.

And as they saw the multitudes coming and watched the sick being healed, demons being cast out, and all kinds of signs of the kingdom taking place before their eyes, they knew that their decision to leave everything and follow Jesus had been right. They were full of hope. And they were having more fun than they've ever had in all their lives.

Then one day, a cloud began to come over and block out their sunshine. Jesus began to talk about going up to Jerusalem to die, about suffering, about laying down his life. And, of course, he also talked about rising again on the third day.

But that went right past everybody. Now, from the time Jesus began to talk about the cross, until they finally saw him hanging there, dying, the disciples started losing their grip. Their vision of their call began to blur.

Arguments came up about which of us is the greatest. Who's going to get those seats next to Jesus? Then they saw him die. And as they watched from a distance and saw his lifeless body hanging on that cross, they thought back to that glorious day by the Sea of Galilee when they had first heard him say, Follow me.

And they began to ask themselves, Did I make a mistake? What went wrong? Was this real? Now, most of us know something about the confusion that those disciples went through. We have felt that confusion, too, and we have asked those same questions, you know. Was it real? Did I make a mistake? Every person who has ever heard that Galilean call, that call by the Sea of Galilee to follow Jesus, comes to a place eventually where they begin to question that call.

Did I make a mistake? Was it real? When things start going rough, the cross begins to loom up, our own lives fall apart, our fellowship with each other is sifted and shaken, then we start to say, Did I make a mistake? Is there anything to this? A wonderful thing happened to those disciples who stuck it out, who stayed together during this time of trial, Jesus' suffering and death. On this day, Easter, these people heard from Jesus a second call, a resurrection call, and it was a call that never left them and has never left the body of Christ down to this day. Reading from John chapter 20, starting in verse 19, On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being shut where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, Peace be with you.

When he had said this, he showed them his hand and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, Peace be with you.

As the Father has sent me, even so I send you. When he had said this, he breathed on them. And said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit.

If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven. If you retain the sins of any, they are retained. Now this is the same Jesus who called them by the sea of Galilee, but now he stands before them in an incorruptible body, and he gives them an incorruptible call, a call they will never forget, a call that will never change.

And it comes to them in three parts. One, Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.

And three, Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven. If you retain the sins of any, they are retained.

And so, the Galilean call is now replaced by a resurrection call. A call which gives them power. A call which puts them under an anointing.

Peace be with you. Now they walk under the anointing of Holy Peace. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.

Now they walk under the anointing of the certainty that they have been sent by the Lord. Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven.

If you retain the sins of any, they are retained. They walk under the anointing of the Holy Spirit, who gives them a word of forgiveness and of judgment for the world. Now this shift from the Galilean call to the resurrection call, which brought these disciples from death to life, from weakness to power, must take place in our lives too.

Sooner or later, we also are taken through a Calvary crisis. A time in which the cross of Jesus begins to make terrible sense. And we, in some way, see Him die.

And we die with Him. And our vanity dies. And our self-righteousness dies.

And our thoughtlessness dies. And our self-pity dies. Then we're ready to hear the resurrection call.

There are very few of us in this place who have not felt the cutting of a cross pushing in on our lives in recent months or days. And this is necessary, without the cross bringing, touching us with death. There's no way we can understand this resurrection call.

It prepares us for this. There's no way we can hear the call of the resurrected Christ, unless we also know what it means to die. And, as a congregation, we've been going through this, experiencing this.

There has been a very clear and obvious sifting going on in this place in the last few years. And with that sifting, also, there has been evidence of people who desire, long, to stick with each other and truly serve each other. And out of that comes a readiness now to hear the resurrection call from Jesus to this congregation, on this Easter day, with unique power.

The first thing he says to us, as a body, as a congregation, and to each of us as an individual, is, Peace be with you. On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being shut where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, Peace be with you. When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side.

Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, Peace be with you. Now, when the risen Christ, the spirit of the risen Lord, comes among us, as he is here now, and says to us, Peace be with you, he is giving us something which we can almost touch.

He is putting into our hands the same power that calmed the storm when he said, Peace be still. Now, it's up to us to receive that peace which he gives us as the most precious treasure flowing to us out of his death and resurrection. And guard it.

And let it rule over us. Watch it carefully. And do nothing to lose it.

That peace is what breaks down the dividing wall of hostility. So now the wall is down between God and us, between man and man, man and woman. And in peace we come together through the shed blood.

But also comes to us the responsibility to make sure that peace is not pushed out. Or disregarded. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, says the spirit.

Meaning, whatever you need to do to hold on to the peace, do it. Whatever you need to avoid to keep from losing the peace, watch it. Endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace, he says.

Now, if the peace of Christ in fact rules over this assembly, then any man or woman searching for the peace of God who comes among us will recognize that it's here. And we take this peace with us wherever we go. We keep remembering that it's the peace of God.

It's not the fleeting peace of tranquil circumstances. There will be disruptions. We sometimes will disrupt circumstances.

And sometimes God will disrupt our circumstances. Tranquility in circumstance for any believer is always temporary. Gives us a rest, then he sends us into another battle.

And in each battle, it's not morbid, it's victory. But there's no victory without a battle. Nor is this the peace of cowardice where we don't want to rock the boat.

You know, we don't want to upset anyone. So we keep our mouth shut if we don't do anything and we let it go by when something needs to be done and something needs to be said. There are times when we are called to take a stand.

There are times when we have to rock the boat. Now, we're talking about the peace of God, the peace of a clear conscience. The peace of a man or woman who is forbearing toward all men as we've been called to be.

Generous overlooking of insult or injury. Not walking around in a snit for five years. The peace of a man or woman of God who has removed the attitude, repented of the attitude, and now goes in the spirit of peace toward those around him or her.

So today he says to us, Peace be with you. God help us to take that peace and walk in it. Everything under control back there? Okay.

Phil said peace. Amen. Good.

The second thing he says to us, his word to us as a congregation and to each of us as an individual is, As the Father has sent me, even so I send you. Jesus says to them again, Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.

As surely as the foundation of everything Jesus did and everything he said, as the Son of Man, remembering as you were told on Good Friday, that Jesus, God the Son, is nevertheless human. Now the foundation of everything he said and did was his absolute certainty that he has been sent by the Father. So now he gives us exactly that certainty that we have been sent by him.

I am not here doing what I'm doing because I'm a volunteer. I'm here doing what I'm doing because I was sent. That's what we all need to be aware of and conscious of continuously.

Wherever I live and where I work, that factory, that office, that school, that hospital, that busy household, that apartment complex, that hotel, wherever I am, I am there as one who has been sent. And I've been sent not to be some kind of Christian celebrity. Watch out for the Christian celebrities.

I don't care who they are. I have been sent to be a servant. To serve God in that place by serving those people.

And so each of us needs to know. You are God's servant in that kitchen under the hood of that car, scrubbing that floor, painting that portrait, creating that music, taking care of that baby, listening on that telephone, whatever you're doing. It's not an accident.

You've been sent. And if you find yourself in a place where you know you weren't sent, get out of there. As the Father has sent me, even so, I send you.

And never forget it. The third thing the risen Lord gives to this congregation, and each of us as an individual, as a resurrection call is, when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven.

If you retain the sins of any, they are retained. And here we have, and this includes us, a powerful word of forgiveness for the world out there. We're given a powerful word of forgiveness.

Look unto him and be saved, all the ends of the earth. Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Come to him, all you who labor and are heavy laden.

He'll give you rest. He'll set you free. And I will, in his name, declare your sins forgiven.

We can say that. When that word of forgiveness is rejected, clearly understood and rejected, then we look him in the eye and we say, you have heard. And you are responsible for what you heard.

And you are no longer innocent, and your sins are cleansed. In an age where the name of the game is cover your tracks, push the responsibility off on someone else, blame your mother, your father, General Motors, Ronald Reagan, the unions, the bankers, but never yourself. The word of the Lord to us is, and through us to others is, but first it has to come to us, then to others.

If you repent, your sins are forgiven. If you refuse, your sins are retained. So we tell them that Jesus died for all, and that the door of the kingdom is open to all.

Everybody's welcome. Everybody's welcome. We also tell them that those who refuse to go through the door, before it closes, and close it will, on the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the door is being shut where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, meaning the leaders.

They were all Jews. Talking about the religious leaders. Jesus came and stood among them and said, peace be with you.

When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. And the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, peace be with you.

As the Father has sent me, even so I send you. Then he breathed on them and said, receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven.

And if you retain the sins of any, they are retained. We are the disciples, this Easter day, receiving an incorruptible call, a call we will never forget, and a call that will never change. May God help us to receive his peace and walk in it.

May God help us to know that we have been sent by Jesus to be his servants in this place and beyond these walls. And may God help us to receive the Holy Spirit afresh and walk in the Spirit, that under the anointing of the Spirit we may proclaim a word of wonderful forgiveness and of frightening judgment, the remaining hours of this world. Let's just wait upon the Lord in silence.

Let him speak to our hearts. And I don't know if there is anybody, but whether you're hearing a downpouring call or a resurrection call and you want to come up and kneel at the rail, somebody will for sure pray with you. Let's wait upon him in silence now.