Read the previous installation in this series!
This is my third post in a series covering Duane Litfin’s sermons at Wheaton College’s chapel last year. Today, I’m excited to tell you about his sermon of November 19, 2007.
His goal in this sermon was to convince us that the role of the church in this age between the two advents of Christ—our role—is to obey the post-resurrection Christ’s command to tell other people to join us in obeying that command to tell people about that command.
Why do we evangelize?
Litfin began by telling about some inter-faith conversations he had recently.
One of the things that comes out in this series of dialogs fairly often is a lack of understanding on the part of the Jewish community as to why Christians and evangelicals in particular are so evangelistic. “Why is it that you feel the need to tell others about your religion?”
Litfin condescends to tell us that it is not only the Jews who lack understanding, but “I’m not convinced that all Christians really understand the answer to that question.” Litfin, naturally, can help with that.
Litfin tells us that Acts 1 and Luke 24 hold the best answer to this question. These are the chapters he is focusing on in this series. He spent the first two sermons in the series arguing that the events of those two chapters are a “profound watershed” that separate the Gospels from the Epistles and that life is totally different on this side.
The kingdom of God changed again
He repeats that these two chapters describe “the great theological watershed that these events represent for us Christians.”
Litfin reads from these chapters in which the post-resurrection Jesus is said to open the scriptures and explain the kingdom of God to his disciples.
I’ve often found myself wondering what it is he said to them as he spoke to them in these post-resurrection appearances about the kingdom of God. You say, “Well, the answer to that’s fairly easy, just look at all his teaching all through the Gospels on the kingdom of God. So many of his parables are directed to — this is the way the kingdom of God is, and then he gives this teaching.”
Since the scripture doesn’t tell us that it was a different kingdom of God, the simple-minded liberals might assume that is was the same one, or that if it were different, the difference was not that important since its contents are not related to us by Luke.
Ah, but this is a little bit different. You know, all the things have changed now. They had experienced the death and the resurrection of Christ now. He’s in this post-resurrection moment. You have to ask yourself, “What changes did that make in the nature of the kingdom of God teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ? How did it sound different now after these momentous events of the death, burial, resurrection, and now here he is appearing in this post-resurrection body? What difference did all of those events make in his teaching about the kingdom of God?”
Since the scripture doesn’t answer any of these questions, Litfin relies on his personal revelation of the Holy Spirit to figure it out.
The disciples were right but their timing was wrong
He reads about Jesus telling them to wait for the coming of the Holy Spirit.
Now as you listen to that, the Lord telling them to go, sit, wait until the promise of the Father, this outpouring of the Holy Spirit—wait ’til that happens. Then you see the disciples’ response, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” We can find ourselves fairly critical of the disciples at that point saying, “You still don’t get it!”
He relates times in the Gospels when the disciples showed that they didn’t understand the kingdom of God.
But Litfin argues that “their confusion, I think, is pretty understandable.”
He goes on to read Jesus telling them in the upper room, just days before, that they would sit on thrones and judge the twelve tribes of Israel.
I must take a moment to thrill in the consistent way Litfin follows his own advice: when you see the liberals draw a line in scripture and focus on one side of the line, call the line a watershed and focus on the other side. Litfin very carefully selects the verses of scripture on which the liberals don’t focus because of evidence from manuscripts or history that those verses were added much later.
But Litfin here is going to all this trouble in order to defend the disciples from the mistaken accusation that their question about the kingdom being restored to Israel was a sign that they misunderstood the kingdom.
Is it any wonder that the disciples at that point are asking him, “Lord, tell us then, is this promise that you’ve given us of the kingdom and the thrones and all of this coming to fruition? Is it about ready to happen? Is this the trigger, this outpouring of the Holy Spirit?” You can understand their question. It’s not off-the-wall. They’re asking about timing issues….
It’s important to notice that the commentators—virtually every commentator on this passage—points out: he didn’t rebuke them about their question about the kingdom. He didn’t tell them, “Wait, you’ve misunderstood what the kingdom is.” All he did was to say, “Look, I want to change the subject. You’re focused on the times the dates. That’s not the issue. Here’s your business for now.” He redirects their focus to the task at hand—the task of this age. And that is serving as his witnesses.
I think we need to be understanding of the disciples. I think their confusion was somewhat understandable. What’s more, it’s clear from what we see from here on out, that these disciples got the word. They got the message. Despite the fact that we see them bumbling through the Gospels and not understanding and continuing to fail to understand and finding themselves caught up in all their selfish, self-centered kinds of concerns. They finally, as of these events, got the message. You can see that by what follows.
In other words, they were right that someday the kingdom of Israel would be restored with Jesus as its king. I love listening to Litfin because he fills in these blanks. Every time Jesus fails to say something, Litfin knows what it was he failed to say and why he failed to say it.
He has also answered the question of the sermon: “what is our role in this age?” The answer is: to witness.
The ascension adds significance to this new kingdom
Litfin then spends some time talking about the ascension.
First, Litfin spends some time dispelling some confusion about what kind of cloud it was that Jesus flew up to the dome on. I suppose there are liberals who question the veracity of the ascension story since a physical body can’t ride a vapor cloud all the way to the dome of the heavens. Litfin helps by filling in the detail missing from the text: Jesus flew around on the same Shekinah Glory cloud that followed the Hebrews around the wilderness from Egypt to Palestine. It was not one of those normal clouds that the pagan gods always flew around on. It’s easy to see why the liberals would overlook that, though.
But Litfin goes on to say,
Whatever kind of cloud it was, this is what was so striking about this event: the sheer finality of it. The earthly Christ has given his last instruction to his church. This is his very final word to his church… which says to us that we really need to think about what’s taking place here. Put yourself in the place of those disciples standing there gazing at this event as the Lord Jesus is taken from them. Think about the significance of what’s happening here. I think it has a profound import for you and for me.
In other words, whatever command Jesus gives at this moment to these particular people who witness this particular indisputably historic event ought to overshadow any commands he gave repeatedly to almost everybody he met before then.
In order to make this point, he spends even more time highlighting the importance of this event which liberals dismiss because, as Litfin said earlier, they don’t understand what kind of cloud he was riding up to the dome on.
The apostle Paul speaks way over in the book of Ephesians, that wonderful passage which is so powerful yet so easily misunderstood, when he says, “He who descended to the earth, and perhaps even to the lower parts of the earth, he who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens in order to fill the whole universe.” It was in that ascension, in that exaltation, that he was able to inhabit the universe through the Holy Spirit in a way that had never been possible before. And that’s what you have on the day of Pentecost.
But now the disciples get it
He describes Peter preaching as a witness for Jesus with power from the Holy Spirit. “This is what he was commissioned to do and all the rest of them as well. And that’s what you find. It’s what happened in Acts 2. And it echoes all through the book.”
The fact that verses 44 and 45 of Acts 2 tell us that all of these thousands of converts sold all of their possessions and shared everything together in a communist, anarchist community only shows that they were still confused by the teachings and practice of the pre-resurrection Christ. We have since gotten rid of that contextualized version of Christianity. We now know that only talking and believing really helps people.
He then read every verse in Acts in which Peter or Paul witness. Then he took another breath and went back to the issue of the disciples’ confusion while Jesus was here.
Yes, the disciples totally didn’t understand the kingdom while Jesus was here. But the moment he left they forgot all of their self-centeredness and stopped making mistakes because they were filled with the Spirit.
Phew! That was close! Imagine if they hadn’t! Some of them might have focused on the wrong things! It might have been among them as it is among other groups of humans where the most obnoxious person triumphs and the view of the biggest jerk who makes the most noise carries the day. But no. The moment the pre-resurrection Jesus left the scene, the Holy Spirit came and all was well.
Gosh, we might have had some mistaken jerk writing things that would end up in the Bible if it hadn’t been for the Holy Spirit! I’ll bet some presumptuous jerk might have even had the nerve to claim that the Holy Spirit was speaking through him in order to coerce people to believe. This actually happens in some so-called “Christian” groups today like the Mormons! Wow! We really dodged a bullet!
The centerpiece of obedience
Litfin goes on, “The disciples got this! But I confess sometimes I wonder if we get it… We are to be Spirit-empowered witnesses.”
I understand why those from outside don’t get that. I can understand why some are looking at us from the outside whether from another religion or from a secularist point-of-view, that scratches their head, and says, “Why can’t these Christians simply be satisfied in being Christians without having to tell everybody else about their religion?” I understand what it looks like from the outside. But you and I have to understand it from the inside. And those who name the name of Christ, who say “we are Christ-followers, we are his disciples, we are seeking to live our lives under his Lordship and be obedient to him.” And the centerpiece of obedience is that the church would rise up to all generations and fulfill this great commission from the Lord Jesus.
The “centerpiece of obedience” is witnessing. Since that is all that the verses Litfin read today talk about, that is all we are to be about.
People in other religions don’t get it. Their religious teachings are all about justice, peace, love, generosity, hospitality, humility, and so on. We Christians are not about that. We are about witnessing.
Some might say that witnessing is just for those who witness something, but no. It is for us: “Every one of us in this age are called to be spirit-empowered testifiers to the Lord Jesus Christ.”
So get out there! Stop doing it and start talking about it!
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