Sermon for Sunday 20th May 2012 - Acts 1: 15-17, 21-26 and John 17: 6-19 – A Relationship with God

If you had to help to choose your next vicar, what qualifications would you look for? In some parishes: they look for an Oxford or Cambridge graduate only. That would weed out an awful lot. We want a learned man, but is intellect the prime importance? A degree in theology may impress but it does not guarantee that the owner is a committed Christian! There is a big distinction between knowing about Jesus and knowing Jesus. 

The disciples had to face this problem with the death of Judas. They were used to working as a team. They went in twos; rarely did they work alone. Eleven was definitely an odd number. Twelve is a special number, like the twelve prophets or the twelve tribes of Israel. If the apostles were like the new Israel they would need to make up their team to twelve. If we play with a team member short, it will affect our overall performance. They needed to find a replacement, so they got together and asked what was required.

They decided together it should be someone who had been with Jesus from the beginning, from the baptism of John until Jesus was taken up from them. (Here we discover there were more than just the twelve going around with Jesus, but nevertheless twelve is a special number).  They needed a team member. They would require that person to witness with them to the resurrection. If they were able to put an advert in Situations Vacant it might sound like this:

Due to the untimely death of an apostle,

one person needed to join a team of twelve.

Will normally be required to work with others. 

Needs to  know Jesus personally and

to be ready to witness to the resurrection.

The important things became obvious. They wanted someone who knew Jesus, not someone who had just heard of him. The person had to have followed and loved Jesus. What mattered was their personal experience of the Lord. What would such a man see as his work?

Take services, look after churches, do social work? Above all he would have to witness to the resurrection. He would have to show others that Jesus is alive. Jesus is not a figure of history or just a holy man of the past: he is the LIVING LORD. We need to know him in the present tense, to know him now.

There seemed two obvious candidates, Joseph and Matthias. Now the followers of Jesus wanted to show that it was God’s choice, not theirs. They prayed, ‘Lord, you know everyone’s heart. Show us which one of these two you have chosen.’ Then they cast lots. We may find this is a little strange but they wanted the choice to be God’s and in those days this was a natural way of seeking their choice. The names of the candidates were written on stones. They were then placed in a vessel and shaken until one stone fell out. He whose name fell out was the chosen one. In this case Matthias’ name came out and be became apostle number 12.  Their relationship with Jesus, the Father was such that they knew they could count on Him to respond to their request.

In the John reading prayer comes up again, this time Jesus prayed for His disciples. Why would Jesus pray for these men? On one hand you could say because they were His friends but it goes deeper than that, Jesus had a relationship with them and they had a relationship with Him. Jesus based his prayer for the disciples on the relationship he bears to them. These men have been given to Jesus by his Father. “They were yours”, says Jesus. They belong to the Father but in a way far different from the simple affirmation that all creation belongs to God. No, this relationship is different. They are given to Jesus “out of the world”. That phrase highlights the Father’s choice, free and deliberate. This also suggests that, like us, they had previously belonged to the world and were entrenched in its sin and rebellion against God. There was nothing inherently special about these men that drove the Father to choose them; it was simply the free and mysterious grace of God.

They were a Father’s gift to his Son – And the Father who chose them has given them to his Son and so the Father and Son share in all things together. The Father will accomplish redemption for this world through his Son and will remake all things in and through him, so anyone who is to have a share in that future (US) must be joined to the Son – and that is what has happened to these men, by the sovereign will of God. They are a gift to his Son, in order to bring glory to the Son through their sharing in all that the Son is and has achieved.

Jesus made the Father known to them and they obeyed the Father’s word to believe in his Son. They accepted what Jesus said and knew with certainty that he had come from the Father and believed that he had been sent by the Father.  In these words of Jesus we see the work of God being acted out in the experience of the disciples – he chose them and, as Jesus revealed him to them, they received and believed his words.

This prayer is specific to their calling as disciples, as those who both know God and are called to make him known. One big thing this tells us is that the divine mission is not in danger, never has been and never will be. Everything is in the hands of the Father and his Son. What comfort that gives to us in terms of our own security and what hope in terms of the progress of the gospel!

He prays for their protection. Jesus knows his disciples no longer belong to this world.  So He prays for theirs and our protection from the world  - Satan. He is the one who stands opposed to God and his mission of mercy in the world and he is the one who stirs up trouble against the Lord and his people. And Jesus says, “My prayer is not that you take them out of the world”. There you have it, straight and to the point. That means that all our attempts to evade the world and to run from any engagement with it are contrary to the praying of Jesus. We often think safety is only gained by removal (“Lord, get me out of here!”) but that isn’t necessarily the case. Jesus is not praying that we be removed from the heat of the kitchen; rather, he is praying that we be protected whilst still in the world. “Protect them”, Jesus prays, “by the power of your name”. Whilst in the world, Jesus protected his own – kept the powers of evil at bay, corrected and rebuked his disciples and so on. As he prepares to leave, he is asking his Father to continue that same work of protection through the Holy Spirit. Jesus doesn’t simply pray for protection, he prays too for sanctification. God’s will, declared in his word, has the power to set people apart for God, to call them out of the world in order to belong to him. Jesus here prays that this will be accomplished in the lives of his disciples.

As Jesus prayed for his own disciples we should pray for ourselves. We must pray that the Lord’s Word would do its sanctifying work in our lives, that we would visibly be the fruit of Jesus. It isn’t enough simply to sit under God’s Word or to read it privately; we must couple those activities with earnest prayer that we would benefit from that same word. Jesus prayed that we might know God and have a personal relationship with Him.

This may seem like a great burden on us but Jesus is not like the Pharisees. Yes, to live on a battlefield and to seek to win over the enemy is a great burden – but Jesus has prayed and does pray for us now. And so these words are intended to breed not gloom but joy within our hearts.  No calling was heavier and more burdensome than that of Jesus yet he was a man of joy. He wants us to share in that joy – not by running from the battle, nor by isolating ourselves far from the spot where mission hits the road, but through knowing his protection and his deep work of sanctification in us. As we embrace our calling and commission, the words of Jesus breathe an abiding joy into our hearts. Amen.

Questions:

1. Who is Christ directly referring to? Who else?

2.       Why would Jesus pray for their protection?

3.       What does Jesus want for his disciples (and for us)? How would hearing this prayer bring that joy to the disciples?

4.       The disciples were a ‘gift’ from the Father to Jesus.  That also means you and me.  How do you feel about being a ‘gift’ to Jesus from the Father bearing in mind that ‘God has chosen you to be witnesses’ and has ‘called you by name’.