"The Missional Church"

Well, good morning brothers and sisters.

My name is Andrew Dinardo. Thank you for the warm welcome.

It's great to be here. I work at First Presbyterian

Church and, and grew up there and now I'm serving on the

pastoral staff with young adults used to work with Henry.

So that's our connection. And it is just great to be here.

It's weird not to see Henry and Kelly while being here, but it's

great to see you all. And if we haven't already met, I

look forward to to meeting you friends.

Today we look at another EPC essential.

It sounds like you all have been going through those.

And today I want to look at the missional aspect of the EPC.

And I want to direct our attention to the book of Acts

Acts 1 · chapter mention

chapter 1. So if you have your Bibles, feel

free to flip there and open there.

Acts chapter 1, verses one through 11 In my former book, O

Acts 1 · chapter mention

Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and teach

until the day he was taken up to heaven.

After giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the

apostles he had chosen after his suffering, he presented himself

to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive.

Appear He appeared to them over a period of 40 days and spoke

about the Kingdom of God. On one occasion, while he was

eating with them, he gave this command.

Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised,

which you have heard me speak about.

For John baptized with water. But in a few days you will be

baptized with the Holy Spirit. Then they gathered around him

and asked him, Lord, are you at this time going to restore the

Kingdom to Israel? He said to them, It is not for

you to know the times or the dates the Father has set by His

own authority. But you will receive power when

the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses in

Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the

earth. And after he said this, he was

taken up before their very eyes, and the cloud hid Him from their

sight. They were looking intently up

into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in

white stood beside them. Men of Galilee, they said, Why

do you stand here looking into the sky?

This same Jesus who has been taken from you into heaven will

come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.

Friends, this is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God. Would you pray with me?

So God, open our ears, give us ears to hear your word, open our

hearts, give us eyes to see. Lord God, transform our minds so

that we would know you and knowing you, love you, and

loving you love one another. We thank you, Lord God, that

your love toward us and for us is one that's inseparable, the

best thing that we can't escape. So we come before you now with

Jesus, our hope, our Redeemer and our friend.

And it's in his name that we pray.

Amen. So I think in the e-mail that

went out, it said that my wife and I, we live, live in Menaca,

I'm at Trinity Seminary, work at First Presbyterian Church.

And it said that we had, I think it said we had two kids with a

third on the way. And, and the third came a couple

weeks ago on November 2nd. Oh, thank you.

Don't have to clap for that, but thank you.

And but having three kids now, I already found myself repeating

myself a good bit in our house, having to say things over and

over again, especially when our four year old doesn't take a nap

midday. And now with three kids, I know

that I'm just going to become a broken record eventually.

That's kind of my future destination.

I always thought my parents were just like that.

And now as a parent and as a dad, I think I'm, I'm starting

to understand sometimes my wife and I will look at each other

and think, are we not being clear enough?

Are we not good communicators? Our, our kids just sometimes

aren't getting it. But I'd be remiss and actually

like completely wrong and misled if I told you that was just my

kids because I need told things time and time again as well,

especially lately. I'm going to blame it on having

three kids with a newborn in the mix.

But I've been told things by my wife and, and she will say we

talked about this and I will say I don't remember a thing about

that conversation. I saw a couple of you look at

one another when I said that. So I'll let you sort that out

afterwards. I didn't have that as the

intended application of the sermon, but it can be.

Friends, we are, we are very forgetful people, right?

And actually that that is the story of Israel throughout

Scripture, the story of God's people, a huge part of their

story is that they are forgetters.

They are not rememberers, even though God throughout his

Scriptures tells them to remember.

That's one of his more common commands to remember.

And yet they forget. So he brings them out of Egypt,

tells them to remember his name, and they spend time wandering

because they've forgotten who he is, and therefore they forget

who they are. And this doesn't stop as Jesus

explains his Kingdom and His way and His will to his disciples as

he's actually physically presently with them.

We all know that the story of the disciples is not one of

perfect following and obedience, but rather it's actually 1 of

forgetfulness. This like spiritual amnesia

where we just can't get it. Even those with the sharpest

minds, the keenest memories seem to forget who God is and our

lives fall out of order from there.

And the apostles in in the book of Acts are no different.

Friends, this morning I come to remind us and remind myself of

of some very basic things. In some ways.

Often times we want to get deep in our faith, but we forget the

very essentials and the roots of it, the apostles of the book of

Acts. And we too needed a reminder of

somewhat basic truths that are at the root of who we are and

who God hopes for us to be. And today I hope we will

together see that the missional church, our church, this church

here, Hebron Church, First Presbyterian Church, the Church

Catholic, meaning worldwide, the missional church is to want what

God wants, is to know God well and to go transformed by his

power and by the work of his Spirit.

So first we see that the missional church wants what God

wants. In Acts chapter 1, when the the

Acts 1 · chapter mention

gospel writer Luke is recounting his former book, he says in my

former book, O Theophilus, he's just harkening back to Luke.

He quickly makes reference to one of the final interactions

that Jesus has with his disciples before being taken up

into heaven. So after all of Jesus's earthly

ministry, after his one-on-one meetings, after all of those

like taking disciples aside to to teach them really important

lessons, the mission trips, the the quasi retreats, you know,

things that we how we would call them these days.

Luke says that the question that the disciples have to offer to

Jesus after all of that is this Lord, are you at this time going

to restore the Kingdom to Israel?

That's their culminating question.

It makes me want to hang my head at times in disappointment or

roll my eyes. Were they daydreaming when Jesus

was with them? You know, maybe like a like I

was in middle school and my teacher would be speaking and

teaching. Often times I'd they'd say,

Andrew, are you listening? And I'd have to kind of have

someone snap me back back into this world.

How could they forget what his Kingdom was like after the

parables were given and many explained and spelled out.

You spent all that time with Jesus disciples and still you

are missing the point. It's not what he came for, to

restore the Kingdom to Israel specifically in that region and

geographic area. And I think, and I wonder

perhaps it wasn't so much a lack of listening, but more so a fear

of what's unknown, wanting to put Jesus and the Kingdom of God

in their terms. You see, all of this was

happening many, many years ago. So often times we can see it and

think, well, I can't really understand because I didn't know

the context. We don't live there.

Now. This world is unlike that world,

but at the same time, these are human hearts.

And therefore this same condition is shared by us again,

this forgetfulness, this spiritual forgetfulness, this

desire to control Jesus, to make him like us rather than for us

to be conformed and made into his image.

And it's such a temptation of ours as I think more and more

so, to have control, or I, I should say, to attempt to have

control because we never truly have it, do we?

In a day and age where we can control things like the

temperature in our homes down to the the degree where we can turn

that on and off from our smartphones while we're away, we

can control many things, or at least it seems like we can.

But then we're reminded by things like often the weather in

Pittsburgh is a good reminder traffic, that there are things

that we truly just cannot control.

No matter how hard humanity tries to squeeze and hold

something and try to control it and shape it into our molds and

images, we cannot control everything because we are not

made to control everything. We're not designed that way.

That's not in our fabric or our framework.

But still, when people see Jesus, and when I say people,

it's not people out there, I'm talking about my heart and

yours, they try to describe him. We try to describe him by our

own terms, don't we? So we read passages talking

about God's love and his mercy and we start to talk in a way as

if God is all love and all mercy and all compassion and it it can

almost become tyrannical and and take over our view of Jesus.

Or we may read other passages about his judgment and his fury

and think, wow, the fear of God, he must be harsh.

So this is how I understand God. We don't balance those well.

We don't often leave room for the complexity and the immensity

of God and our Lord. He's very complex,

understandable to us, but also still beyond our thoughts.

We begin to think then that he wants what we want.

And so when the apostles then here, going back into this

passage, ask Jesus about restoring the Kingdom to Israel,

it's an honest question that honestly reveals their human

hearts. It's an honest question and we

have to admire that. What they're most excited for,

seemingly, is for Jesus to take up their cause.

And we love leaders who take up our cause, don't we?

My mom, the house I grew up in, there's a little alley behind it

in Rochester, PA, small little town.

And there was a pothole like right behind her driveway.

And it was there for for years and years.

And she kept calling the borough and saying, can you fill in this

pothole at at some point? And they kind of kept putting it

off, putting it off. And then eventually she found

someone that would lend her an ear and they filled the pothole,

right? Even those sort of things.

Filling a pothole feels good, right?

When somebody kind of takes up our cause or maybe a a national

leader takes up our cause. And once what we want, those are

good feelings because it feels like what we desire is coming to

fruition. It can be like, finally, I've

been hoping for this, even if it's outside of biblical

qualities or values. We can find ourselves wanting

what we want. That's how we live our lives.

The disciples here, they ask what I'm going to call an empire

building question born out of self-interest.

Are you going to restore the Kingdom to not, not to the

people of God necessarily in their minds, but to Israel, to

this geographic center? Are you then at this time to

going to restore the Kingdom to Israel while we're here, while

we're living, so we can see it right now?

Jesus responds then to this empire building question with a

Kingdom witnessing answer. What does he say?

It's not for you to know the times and dates the Father has

set. And then he follows it up by

saying, But you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea

and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth, not just where they

were, but to the ends of the earth beyond their comprehension

at the time. The disciples, the apostles here

want Jesus to want what they want.

The missional church is oriented to want what God wants.

And how do we know what God wants?

Because often times we can say, God, I'm here for you, I'm

available. I want to want what you want.

I want to do what you design for me to do.

And that can feel paralyzing. I work with young adults at our

church. I worked with middle school and

high school students for years. And so now the middle school and

high school students are the young adults in our church.

So I've just kind of moved up with them and a lot of our

conversations are difficult because they're in the stage of

life either not having gone to college or gone to college and

then moved home and they're unsure of what they want to do.

They they feel like they have this greater purpose and this

greater calling and this zeal and desire to serve the Lord,

but they're caught in between. You know, your 20s can be a

really value setting time of life, but it can also be really

confusing and disorienting. Just coming out of my 20s, I can

confess that it was disorienting for me to living at home with my

mom and trying to figure out everything.

It can be difficult in these times to know what Jesus wants,

but friends, we have praise God His word for us and here in the

scriptures we see that Jesus did not tell his disciples that they

will build the Kingdom of God, but that they will be what's the

word witnesses. That brings us to our second

point that the missional church is to know God well, to know God

well. No, I'm not saying we have to

have degrees and and and education and formal education

because I believe the good news is to all people and available

to all people. Yet we need to know who God is.

Kevin Deyoung, a well known Christian author says this about

Jesus Kingdom and I'd ask for you to think about it and

consider it. He says when you look at the

gospels and examine the verbs associated with the Kingdom, you

discover something surprising. Much of our language about the

Kingdom is a bit off. We often speak of building the

Kingdom, ushering in the Kingdom, establishing the

Kingdom in our words, or helping the Kingdom to grow.

Rang collective song Build your Kingdom Here Jesus does teach

parables like the one of the Mustard seed that sure make it

sound like the Kingdom grows and is meant to be large and

expansive. But within those parables, if

you look closely, the Kingdom is not equated to something large,

expansive, and taking over, but to something small, potent,

often overlooked, or deemed insignificant by the world.

God is the master, friends, of using the things that don't seem

like much in the world to humble the things that claim to be

significant. And in heaven, I truly believe

the people that are not known at all will receive standing

ovations by the angels and by the hosts of heaven.

So then when Jesus tells his apostles who will who they will

be in Acts 18, that famous Acts 18, we should be sure to note

that he does not say and you will be an influencer.

Although having a positive influence for God is a good

thing. He does not say you will be a

business leader, though you can lead in a godly way.

He doesn't even say you will be Kingdom builders.

He could have instead, he says what you will be my witnesses.

Doesn't that sound a little less inspiring to you?

Witnesses. It's kind of our point today.

So I'm I really want to hammer at home, but it's also it it's

it's kind of a little more quiet, isn't it?

Witnesses. I mean, if if I told you right

now go out and be leaders for God, that sounds a little bit

better, right? Or go out and be the best

version of yourself for God, Go out and and love everybody right

from here for God. But if I say go and be witnesses

for God, how many of how many of us are going to leave here with

burning hearts or even a clear idea of what that means to be a

witness for God? But friends, I want to convince

you and and convince myself and argue today that a witness is

really important, essential. So important that Luke uses the

same word to describe Christians again and again in chapters

235671013. You get the point.

Also in his Gospel of Luke, when Luke wants to talk about who a

Christian is, he chooses to use the word witness.

Why witness? A few years back, my cousin is a

little bit deeper, but my cousin was was actually passed away in

a drug deal gone wrong and it's still a hard event to sort

through. But I can remember sitting in

the courtroom and the proceedings with my uncle who

had just lost his son and listening to other high school

students at the time that had witnessed the event.

And it was extremely important that their witness would be

accurate because this other high school student that was being

tried is guilty. He was.

He was essentially being potentially put away for almost

the rest of his life. This witness that these high

schoolers were giving was so important.

It was so important that it had to be accurate.

Have you realized or do you need reminded today that a large part

of your role as a believer is to accurately represent Jesus?

Now, I don't mean to put so much pressure on you necessarily.

That's that It's just like crippling, but rather to call us

up like Paul does, to know what the Bible says about God.

In an age of of low biblical understanding and literacy.

I'll admit that I don't often see my role as a witness, but

this is the role that Jesus leaves his apostles with.

Not to go around putting words in Jesus's mouth or putting nice

slogans that are attributed to him saying that he was going to

restore the Kingdom to Israel soon and, and, and then

therefore mix their hopes with his word that would be shaping

Jesus to their agendas. But instead, Jesus wants them to

go around accurately portraying who Jesus is, who he is, and

taking on his agenda because he did have one.

It was clear. And I want to ask us today, how

would our church look different if it was made-up of Christians

who know knew Jesus really well, who saw their role as being a

witness? And it takes time, friends, to

understand his will and his plan.

If you don't believe me, just look at the disciples.

Just look at yourself, myself. Faith in Jesus, like fly

fishing, which I've taken up recently, is a lifetime sport,

isn't it? We never graduate from the

gospel, but there's always more to learn, and that's a good

thing. Through this personal

relationship of knowing God, we get to be his witnesses,

attesting truthfully to his Kingdom and carrying out God's

mission for his church in this world, for the life of the

world, so that it would flourish and see God and know him.

So the missional church is to know God well, but we cannot do

this alone. Jesus knew this, the apostles

knew this. And this brings us to our final

point. We see that the missional church

is to go transformed by God's power and by the power of the

Spirit and the leading of the Spirit.

So when Jesus promises that the Spirit would give the apostles

power, when they hear that, that word power, when we hear that

word power, they probably got excited again about this vision

for restoring Israel. Power sounds like it can restore

a Kingdom. Actually, it sounds like it can

take over a Kingdom. But in his very next words,

Jesus tells them that Israel will not be their sole focus.

Jesus gives us and his disciples a very clear picture.

He doesn't speak in parables here.

He's very straightforward. He says that in he does not give

a parable, sorry, but a prophecy, telling them that he

they will be his witnesses, not just in Israel or Jerusalem, but

then in Judea, Samaria, to the ends of the earth.

And he's right, because the course of the book of Acts goes

exactly this way. If you trace the progression of

the new church's missional journey in Acts, you'll find

that this is the exact route laid out by Jesus gone on by the

disciples. Chapters one through 5 of Acts

concern their witness in Jerusalem.

Chapters 6 through 9 of Acts cover their ministry in Judea

and Samaria. And chapter 10, chapters 10

through 28 trace the witnesses in far reaching places like

Rome. And obviously the Gospel

continued far beyond that. The witnessing ministry begins

in Jerusalem, goes out to Judea, again to Samaria, and out beyond

the reaches, far beyond what these apostles, simple people,

would have ever imagined. These concentric circles of

missional journeys continue to expand and broaden the horizons

of who the gospel is. For it will no longer be for one

ethnic group or one people or one church, but for all people,

gathering a multitude from every tribe, nation, and language.

The power that Jesus spoke of would not be used to restore the

Kingdom to ethnic Israel, but to bring a potent breaking in of

the Kingdom of God. A potent breaking in of the

Kingdom of God. When I thought of this, I

thought back to Jesus's parable of of the mustard seed.

And when I thought of the parable of the mustard seed, I

thought, I've never tasted mustard seed.

So we had some in our, in our spice cabinet and in our pantry

and I went in, I don't know if you've ever done this kind of a

strange thing to do actually, now that I think about it.

And I took a little mustard seed.

I wanted to just see what 1 was like.

And I popped it in my mouth and I was, oh man, after I crushed

it, really, really potent, really potent flavour.

Wouldn't recommend it. So let me just tell you about it

and save, save you from that. But this is one of the parables

that he uses. A mustard seed.

Just one small seed contains all that flavor.

It barely had a scent. It barely seemed like much.

But when planted, it spreads. When crushed, it's potent.

Even when seemingly destroyed, it still has its taste.

The church in Acts has this potency.

When the church seems crushed. It's actually most potent when

where it's planted, it breaks through and doesn't return void.

Where the seeds of faith are carried, the Spirit is there.

The missional church goes by God's power.

Finally, friends, how do we know this to be true?

Well, God the Father doesn't just give us Acts chapter 1,

Acts 1 · chapter mention

Matthew 28, or missionary efforts of Paul.

We have historical evidence that the gospel continues to go forth

even in countries that do not allow it.

Even in countries that say that church is not allowed, the

gospel there actually is very potent and breaking forth and

coming through. And what's more, we also get a

glimpse of our final day, of the final day in Revelation 7, the

same 1 the apostles asked about in Acts 1.

And here in this scene, Kingdom witnesses, like I had mentioned

earlier, from all reaches of the globe are gathered to worship

one person, the Lamb, and attendance so high none can

count. All praising the Lamb, the ends

of the earth together in one place for one purpose, to enjoy

the Lord. Finally to rest.

So we get to go forth today, not just waiting in full certainty

of that day and saying I can, I can relax.

It's not a la Z boy faith or recliner that we sit back into,

but rather friends as participants now in our world

and in our communities. Not hiding from the world, but

actually engaging with it. Because we have the hope that

the world needs. We have the hope that we need

every day as we wake up, the wait is over.

Then we can stop asking because the Kingdom of God is at hand.

So what does this all mean for us?

What does it mean for you to be a witness, to know God well, to

want what He wants? It means we can and are free to

seek the flourishing of our city and of our town and of our

households, of our communities, of our blocks, even amidst

population decline or times of scarcity and uncertainty.

It means we point to practical hopes of food and water and

lasting hope found in the living water and bread of life.

It means that we're not afraid to know God well and make

changes to our lives right now as it's revealed to us because

God tells us. It means that you and I as a

church are called both as individuals and then also

together to want what God wants, to know him well, and to go

transformed by the love of God, the grace of the Lord Jesus

Christ, and the fellowship found in the Holy Spirit.

Amen. Can I pray for us, Lord God, we

thank you for your love for us that empowers us, that does not

leave us nor forsake us. We thank you, Lord, for your

patience with us when we don't get it.

We thank you for the power of your spirit that leads us when

we're unsure or uncertain. And we thank you, Lord God, for

your continued presence with us that you don't leave us, that

you go before us, that you're here today.

So we come with Jesus today, and we pray this all in His name.

Amen.