With the Kingdom Inside You – Luke part 15 – Grant Vissers

Good morning. So if there are any kiddos who

want to go to Sunday school, now is the time.

And I've heard that there are good things happening outside

today. So any big kids who want to go?

Also, I won't hold it against you.

Like, all good. My name is Grant, and while I

introduce myself, I'm going to roll this thing out.

Hello, You know I always worry about knocking the TV over.

Sorry, Brian. You might have your iPads might.

Oh, great. Hey.

So in a minute, we are gonna work our way through a passage

from book called Luke, Luke chapter 6.

Luke 6 · chapter mention

That's going to help you get situated if you would like to

find it in a phone or tablet or on a Bible.

If you'd like to have like an actual Bible in your hands, we

have those at the back of the sanctuary toward these doors

here. There's a cart.

They might not be the same version that I'm reading from up

here. They might not be the same

version 1 to another, but that's all right.

If you just, if there's something about it that you want

to just have in your hands, I think that's also good.

But in a moment, as we work through it, we'll also have it

on the screens in front for, for us all.

What I want to do this morning is pray and then read it

straight through. We won't have it on the screens

for that encourage you maybe just to listen again, if you

want to follow along, you can. And then it'll be up on the

screens as we, as we work through it kind of line by line.

So let me, let me pray. Yeah.

Thanks for your love and for your grace.

Thanks that you're with us. Yeah.

We're grateful that you call us to gather here and to be in

community, to have meaningful friendships, relationships with

one another, and to also meet with an encounter you.

And so, God, I pray that this morning would hold all of what

you promise it to hold all of your presence with us, all of

the community that we find life giving, all of it that we find

encouraging, and all of it that we find challenging and even

convicting. So God thanks that you desire to

speak to us and so I would pray you'd do that this morning as we

read and as we work through this text in Jesus name, Amen.

So this is from Luke chapter 6. I'm starting in verse 12.

Luke 6 · chapter mention

It says one of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to

pray and spent the night praying to God.

When morning came, he called his disciples to him and chose 12 of

them, whom he also designated apostles.

Simon, whom he named Peter, his brother Andrew James, John

Philip Bartholomew, Matthew Thomas James, son of Alphaeus,

Simon, who was called the Zealot.

Judas, son of James and Judas Iscariot who became a traitor.

Look, we just pause there for a second and just like feel a

little bit of sympathy for Judas, who gets named the trader

by Luke. Luke wants to make no, we're

going to get we're going to come back around to that.

Luke wants it to be crystal clear that it was Judas

Iscariot, not Judas son of James.

Let's get them clear. So we continue in, 17 says he

went down with them and stood on a level place.

A large crowd of his disciples was there, and a great number of

people from all over Judea, from Jerusalem and from the coastal

region around Tyre and Sidon, who had come to hear him and to

be healed of their diseases. Those troubled by impure spirits

were cured and the people all tried to touch him because power

was coming from him and healing them all.

So when I drop my kids off at school, Two of them anyways,

there is, there's a, there's a process, there's a protocol, My

older of the two, the older of the two or oldest of the three

really, she gets to run and just go and play.

And then when the bell rings, she can enter into the school

and, you know, meets up with her classroom or friends or teacher

and away she goes. But the middle of my 3 is in

kindergarten still. And so she, she actually needs

to be dropped off. And so that means one of two

things. One, we either drop her off to

this fenced in area that I've heard referred to as the kinder

pen. I'm not sure that we're actually

allowed to refer to it that way. But however we dropped them off

there and they play or we can wait by the door and drop them

off there. When we pick them up though, all

of us, we have the every kinder parent or guardian grandparent,

whoever is picking up those kindergarten kids, we have to

gather around the door and wait for a kids to be released to us.

And it, I mean, I don't know if this is surprising or not, but

right beside the kinder door is the bell that rings and it's

loud. So if the kindercare, we have

all the parents waiting there and I still to this day, like

we're almost a year of this, I will still get surprised by that

bell and how loud it is. All of us gathered waiting for

our kids jump at the same time and collect ourselves before our

kids come out. It's a loud bell.

It's a little bit obnoxious and I'm sorry teachers hanging out

here like, but it gets the point across for all of us, especially

we feel that the kindergarten parents, right?

You can't mistake what it means. It's time for your kids to go

home. Like take them away, take them

whether we're done or you, you we also, neither of us, none of

us can hear out of our left ear. But like, we all know what it

means, alright? Nobody can mistake that bell.

It is shouting alarm bells. It's time to go home.

And this, this passage that we read, all of it is, is

functioning a little bit like that alarm bell.

It's shouting like it's time. There's a lot of different

alarms going off that people would have heard and seen.

And that the readers, Luke wants us who are reading to see and

go, ohhh, something is happening here.

Something's different. Sit up.

Like pay attention. Alarm bells are going off all

the way through. And today what I want to do is

just simply name some of those alarm bells for us because I

think it points us in a good direction.

And if you hear me for the first time, like I think it points us

as individuals in a good direction.

I think it also points us as a church in a good direction, as a

community in a good direction together.

So Luke writes this. He says one of those days Jesus

went out to a mountainside to pray.

And if you're prone to highlighting and underlining

this mountain, this is the alarm bell.

So he goes out to the mountain side and he spent the night

praying to God. When morning came, he called his

disciples too many chose 1212 of them, whom he also designated

apostles. We're going to get to that, but

I want to spend a little bit of time talking about the beginning

of this verse. So spent the night praying to

God in English just sounds like any other sentence.

Here's Jesus. He goes and he spends a night

praying to God. But this is a very specific

word, a single word in the Greek, and it is used to talk

about an all night prayer vigil. This is something that isn't

just, you know, I think I'm gonna go and spend some time in

prayer or I've been feeling things a little bit heavy.

I mean, maybe I should be praying.

Those are good things. That's a great prayer is always

a good thing to do, but it's not reactive.

It's not just OK pasional. It's not just because of what is

happening in Jesus's life. It's not just a simple I'm gonna

go pray before bed and then I'm gonna go and, and I'll sleep.

This is a an intentional move to go and to pray through the

night. It's actually linked to a Hebrew

term used to refer to the same thing and all night prayer

vigil. It's an intentional move that

Jesus makes not just to go up the mountain for a moment or a

minute or to say a few words and then return.

Jesus is intentionally seeking God's will.

He's intentionally seeking God's vision and God's direction for

what is to come. And in order to do that, he goes

and he prays intentionally through the night.

He goes to a mountainside to pray.

Now in the translations that we're dealing with, he does say

Luke says mountain side. Literally it just says he went

to the mountain to prey. The mountain in Luke's Gospel is

a place of prayer. It is designated.

It is an alarm bell signaling this is a move toward prayer.

Jesus goes up the mountain to pray, but the mountain in

Scripture is is not simply or just or only a place of prayer.

The mountain was perceived. It's not just geographically

either. It's it's perceived as a sign,

this symbol of heaven meeting earth, where heaven breaks into

earth where you can ascend and encounter God and encounter

heaven. The Bible project puts it like

this, which great resource if you've never checked them out.

Alright, the Bible project is, is a fantastic resource to help

you through and study, read all of scripture.

But they write about them, and they say in the Bible the

mountains are mentioned not merely as geographic settings,

but as sacred places where heaven and earth collide, where

the divine presence joins humanity to provide instruction,

direction, and hope for the day when all of heaven and earth are

finally won. And so when we see Jesus go up a

mountain, when we see these characters through Scripture,

these people go up mountains. It is always for a purpose, and

that purpose is always heaven breaking into earth.

And I love the language where heaven and earth collide in

Genesis and we're not going to read through all of the Old

Testament. I promise I BS and maybe one day

we will, but not today in Genesis, the very first book in

the Bible, opening sort of story narrative that we see God plants

a garden and we find out later in the Bible, I think it's in

Ezekiel, that that garden is actually perceived to have been

on a mountain. It was the place of God's

immediate and intimate presence with humanity, but it required

surrender to stay there, to stay in the garden.

And So what we see is, is Adam and Eve, they eat from a tree

and it's a whole thing, but they trust themselves over trusting

God. They begin questioning God and

his goodness and his intention toward them.

And what we see through that story is, is the reality of sin

and separation creeping into human existence.

We see shame and isolation begin to rear their ugly heads.

And ultimately, humanity's relationship with God is broken

in that garden up on that mountain.

And Adam and Eve are sent away. Later when God calls, we're

jumping a little bit when God calls Abraham to follow him.

Abraham's family, he says, listen, your family will become

a great nation. You will become a great nation.

And I'm gonna bless people through this nation.

And Abraham kind of laughs at God.

He said, listen, I don't know if you know this, but I don't have

any kids. I don't have any children.

And in order to confirm, establish this covenant between

God and Abraham, God calls Abraham up the mountain.

And it's there through a series of tests that that God

establishes this covenant with Abraham and with his family for

generations to come. After freeing that future

family. Are the Israelites from slavery

in Egypt? God would call Moses, the leader

at the time, up another mountain to deliver the law, including

the 10 commandments, laws that would set biblical Israel apart

from their surroundings, from surrounding nations, that would

make them wholly. And up on that mountain, God

calls them a nation of priests, again set apart for a purpose.

Upon that mountain, heaven breaks into earth and says this

is how things will unfold. Not for your own sake, for the

world's sake. Still later, This is why I said

we're not going to read through all of it.

One of Israel's kings, King David, who we talked about

briefly last week, would build a city on a hill.

Prophets like Elijah would ascend mountains to receive

instruction and revelation from God for humanity.

How things ought to be in this world because of how things are

in heaven. And so we're not just meant to

see Jesus go up a mountain to pray, because it's a quiet

place. And from there he can see all

his surroundings and he can maybe see the crowds gathering.

And it's not even that he goes up a mountain to be away from

the crowds, though that's, practically speaking, a good

move. We're meant to see the garden.

We're meant to see Abraham and Moses and Elijah were meant to

see David and all of the hopes and dreams for how things ought

to be in the world. We're meant to see all of

humanity's attempts to ascend the mountain and that ultimately

fail. And so instead we're meant to

see Jesus ascending on our behalf and God in the person of

Jesus descending the mountain to be with his people.

And you know, one of the things that convicts me the most and

convinces me the most and reminds me the most about the

character of God inside of our Christian understanding of who

he is and who we are. Is that reality that for

generation after generation after generation, human beings

have been ones who naturally attempt to ascend the mountain

and reach God and make it based on hard work and effort,

accomplishments, or who don't because of failure, what you're

not able to accomplish or what you do accomplish in negative

ways. And instead in in Christianity,

what we find is not God saying work harder to climb the

mountain. I'm waiting for you.

We see a God who descends and who literally in our passage,

we're gonna get there, descends to be with the people.

God's breaking into the world. He created heaven, breaking into

earth. One of those days Jesus went to

the mountain to pray. When morning came, he called his

disciples to him, and I want you to highlight this.

Called his disciples to him and shows 12 of them whom he also

designated apostles. There's a lot going on there,

but it is from this place of prayer that Jesus will call the

12 disciples and will name them apostles.

To be an apostle. Apostle, The word means that you

are a messenger, one who was sent out with a message, but not

only with a message to speak. You are sent out with authority.

You bear, you carry with you in your body the authority of the

one who sends you out. So to be an apostle is to be

sent OK. It is to have a message, and it

is to have authority. You bear the authority of the

one sending you. And so we continue reading

Simon, whom you named Peter, his brother Andrew, James, John,

Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus,

Simon who is called the Zealot, Judas son of James and Judas

Iscariot who became a traitor. 12 apostles sent out to bear the

message of Jesus, to live into that identity, that word of

apostle, one who is sent in the Greco-roman world.

This is from one of the commentaries this week.

The term apostolos was used to describe a messenger or envoy

sent with authority to represent someone else, one who was

commissioned by another to represent him in some way.

Authority to represent someone else.

These 12 Jesus sends out and Jesus continues to send out ones

with authority to represent his message.

Now one of the alarm bells here is in the fact that Jesus

chooses 1212 disciples whom he also calls apostles, who he says

you will live into this identity as apostle. 12 is not a common

number for rabbis to have as disciples.

It wasn't as though every single rabbi had 12 disciples.

And so Jesus is doing exactly what was expected of him.

Rabbis had hundreds of disciples, and so in naming 12,

Jesus is doing something very intentional.

Now, I'm gonna rely on a few of you who I know play certain

sports outside of our time together on Sunday morning.

That's as far as I'm going to go.

If I were to start gathering up, six of you say, hey, I we're

going to go after church. We're going to go outside and

we're going to play something. I need 6 of you.

I need 5 of you who are really going to run around with sticks

in your hands. And I need one of you who can

stick some pads on and not be afraid to get hit by stuff like

what? What are we doing?

What are we playing? We're playing hockey.

Thank you. OK, great.

I was looking at a few of you. I'm like, please don't miss

this. We're playing hockey.

This is how NT Wright talks about this passage, although he

uses, he uses football as an analogy and 11.

And so I had to Google that because he's not actually

talking about football. He's talking about what I

understand as soccer. And so that got lost in the

weeds and we didn't go there. So we stick to hockey.

Most of us know. Many of us know that if I go

around and start picking five players and one goalie, we're

going to go play hockey. Jesus walking around choosing 12

disciples is doing something very intentional that would

start to trigger alarm bells for those seeing and especially

those reading now Luke's passage 12.

I remember 12. I've heard of 12.

We have the 12 tribes of Israel. Is is Jesus creating a a new

Israel? Maybe I wonder what he is doing.

He's doing something intentional.

Is it good? Is it from God?

Is it blasphemy? I don't know.

Let's wait and see. Like these are the thoughts that

people are going to begin to think when they see Jesus very

intentionally stepping in and saying 1212 of you go out, bless

the world. I remember that Israel was

called to be blessed so that they could be a blessing.

Just carry my message with you. I remember that.

That's what Luke wants us to see.

Were meant to see 12 tribes of Israel.

Were meant to see Jesus saying the the way things are will be

new, but you know this language it'll be it'll be new it'll be

full of life. It'll be everything we've waited

for and hope for long for. But you know that this is the

fulfillment of what we've been waiting for.

And so we read 12, we see Jesus creating life, creating a

culture, creating a community that was meant to step into the

same mantle, the same task as biblical Israel.

Israel that existed to bless the nations around it, to be wholly,

to be set apart, not for their own sake entirely, but so that

they could change the way things operated in the world.

Jesus is stepping in and he's creating a new community.

He says, hey, this community will change the way things are

in the world, will influence culture, will step in, not

retreat from. But I also think we're meant to

see ourselves in these names, right?

Matthew, who's a tax collector before he was called to be a

disciple, some fishermen, Simon is called the zealot, one who

would pick up arms, one who would pick up a sword and

actually drive out occupying forces because he believes so

firmly and changed. Judah, son of James and Judas

Iscariot, who became a traitor. Why?

Why would Luke throw that in? Except in some sense, I do.

I do wonder if, from the very best of them to the very lost of

them, Jesus wants you to see yourself being pulled toward

this same identity. No matter how close you are or

far you feel away. Whether you've got the resume or

whether you feel like you've not got the resume, Whether you've

checked all the boxes in your mind or whether you've left all

of the boxes unchecked in your mind.

No matter what it is that God calls you out of, He says

there's a place to belong here. One of the most powerful images

is that Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor, is still going

to have his feet washed by Jesus.

I will get to it eventually. So there's nothing that you've

done that God can't call you out of, and every single one of you

is meant to be called toward this identity.

Disciple, one who follows relentlessly after God and

Apostle, one who is sent out with a message and with

authority to bear the person of Jesus into the world.

One of my friends. Theologian, pastor who

supervised my thesis in seminary, he wrote this.

He says we've learned to speak of God as a missionary God and

so we must learn to understand that the church as sent people.

You are one who is sent into the world.

Wrap up these last verses 17. We continue says he went down so

Jesus he went down with them. Those 12 and stood on a level

place. A large crowd of his disciples

was there and a great number of people from all over Judea.

This is interesting from all over Judea, Jerusalem, from the

coastal regions, tire siding. So we've got predominantly

Jewish cities and areas. We have predominantly Gentile

cities, non Jewish cities and areas.

And all of them had come to hear him and to be healed of their

diseases. Those troubled by impure spirits

were cured, and the people all tried to touch him because the

power was coming from him and healing them.

All This is if you're reading in your Bible, what likely begins

for you something called the Sermon on the Plane, and it's

Luke's version. We'll get into this in the Bible

study more. So not today, it's Luke's

version, or it's an account of a similar story to similar

teachings to the Sermon on the Mount.

Now I think one of those has a cooler name, but they both

accomplished something significant.

Again, what what Luke wants us to see is Jesus going down with

them and standing on a level place to where the large crowd

is. Remember, Lucas set up the

mountain as a place of prayer, and here he brings Jesus down

the mountain to be with the people.

He's making it very clear Jesus is one who is bringing God's

presence into the world. But if we were to continue with

the hockey analogy for a second, the very first thing that I'm

going to do, if I'm smart and so you know what, we'll see.

If I were to pull a hockey team together, I'm not sure.

Maybe I'd jump on the ice and just go for a skate.

However, the very first thing that I should do is call those

five, you know, people together, 6 including the goalie, and say

hey, this is how we are going to play.

This is how we are going to win. This is how we're going to

accomplish the task before us. This is what you need to know.

Who's gonna play what position, like who's better on defence,

who can skate backwards? Like that's not my, that's not

my skill. So who's going to play forward?

Who can skate forwards? Who's gonna go?

You bring everybody together to discuss the plan of attack.

And in some way, what Jesus is doing here is calling his

disciples, naming the 12, declaring them to be apostles,

and then gathering with everybody, the crowds, the

disciples, coming down the mountain with his message from

God, with his message about the Kingdom embodied in himself, and

saying this is how it's going to go.

This is what you need to know as you live out your life.

There's not going to be a long treaties.

It's not going to be the rest of the book fleshed out.

It's not going to be an entire Bible worth of manuscripts of

like how to and if this, then that.

But he's going to say, Hey, this is the basic.

This is what you need to know now that we live inside of this

new Kingdom. From here, we're going to move

on to the Beatitudes series of blessings and in Luke also woes.

Very quick in some ways. Simple things to remember.

This is how life is different inside of the Kingdom.

What do we need to know as we go out into the world?

That's where we're headed. I love this passage.

Leslie New Begin talks about how the Kingdom of God is new

precisely because it is embodied and demonstrated in the person

of Jesus. And that's what we see here,

that Jesus doesn't just proclaim, He doesn't just move

to teaching, He doesn't just stand and speak.

He embodies everything about this new life inside of the

Kingdom. He carries the Kingdom around in

his body. He lives it out for people to

not just hear about, but actually encounter, to bump

shoulders with, to feel, to experience.

And I think that's why it matters that there's a great

number of people who are also there and they gather and Jesus

doesn't rush into teaching. He doesn't say, hey, everybody,

sit down, here's what you need to, what you need to know.

He moves in and what happens? They've come to hear him, but

they've also come to be healed of their diseases, right?

Those troubled by impure spirits, they're cured.

The people are all trying to touch him because power was

coming from him and it's healing them all.

The miracles, the healing, the deliverance.

They aren't just signs that prove that Jesus is the Son of

God, or or the Messiah, or the new David or the new Moses.

They aren't signs that point to something else.

They are the Kingdom, and so Jesus is gonna get to the

teaching and he's gonna layout how to live inside of the

Kingdom of God. But even before he does that,

he's living out what it means to be inside the Kingdom of God and

to carry that message with you. Nubian then writes this.

He says when Jesus sends out the disciples, they are commissioned

to announce the presence of the Kingdom and to perform the works

that authenticate its presence. You carry the Kingdom around in

your body. You who call yourself a follower

of Jesus carry what it means to live inside the Kingdom in you,

not just for yourself. You are sent out with it, in

your DNA, in your bones, in the way you breathe, in the way you

interact with your friends and your colleagues and your

neighbors. Everything you are is designed

to be a messenger, one who bears witness to who Jesus is.

As you go, as you move from your home to your workplace, as you

live in that space, you carry the Kingdom.

You embody it, You breathe it in and out, interacting with those

around you. In Acts chapter 1, same author

Acts 1 · chapter mention

Luke writes that Jesus, before he ascends looking around as his

disciples say this. He says 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 as we shift toward

communion, what we do in communion is proclaim that

message. We speak those words.

We remember it. Jesus's death and his

resurrection. It's what I see in communion as

we eat the bread and drink from the cup's tangible reminders

that life inside the Kingdom is different.

And it's also what I see in the garden when a group of people,

plus a tractor will gather around a shoveled dirt and plant

gardens to get their hands dirty in order for food to go out into

our community. That's what I see every day in

the way you choose to live your lives together and toward the

world. Let me pray.

God, thanks for your love and for your grace.

Thanks that you're with us thinks that your design is for

us to come and to follow you, to leave everything like the

writers say and follow you to then embody your message, to

experience into the core of our our being, to know it in real,

tangible, personal ways and for it to form us together into a

community. Thanks to that, as a community,

we can gather and we can proclaim your death and your

resurrection, and we can remember.

We can live into again that experience.

So God, as we do, I pray that you would speak to us.

I pray that you would remind us of your love and your grace.

I pray for those of us who feel far and distant.

You would remind us of your presence, how near and close you

are. For some God, I pray you would

remind us of your forgiveness for the ways in which your your

death defeated death and sin and shame, how your life calls us

toward new life. The guy would you lead us to

repentance? I pray for some.

You would remind us of our scent Ness, how you send us into the

world not just to speak about these things but to live them

out. God, I pray that as all of us

together, as we leave, we would know that we go to proclaim your

death, your resurrection, until you come again.

I pray these things in the strong name of Jesus, Amen.