Formed to be Sent W/Pastor Ericka

Why has God given us His Spirit? As we conclude our Come, Holy Spirit series, Pastor Ericka invites us to consider a question that reframes everything we've been learning. Returning to Jesus' words in John 20 and Acts 1, this message explores the surprising connection between God's peace, the gift of the Holy Spirit, and the life to which we are called. Perhaps the Spirit's work in us has always been leading somewhere.

Transcript

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Church, we have been um on a journey, and I think today we come to the end of a journey. For the past several weeks, we have been asking one question. Thank you, worship team. Who is the who is the Holy Spirit? Who is the Spirit of the Living God? And together we have across several weeks discovered that the Spirit of the Lord is the Lord and the giver of life. We experience the Spirit as our companion and our advocate. We've learned that the Spirit gives gifts and he empowers God's people. He forms, when Elder Jeff was here, he preached on, he forms and gives identity and purpose and belonging as a body that's gathered, and he transforms our lives. And today, as we come to the end of this sermon series, I believe it's important that we ask one final question. Why? Why does God give his spirit? What's all this for? Because if we're not careful, we can leave a series on the Holy Spirit thinking that the Spirit's primary work is all about us, our comfort, our growth, our transformation, our encouragement. And of course, all of those, I'd like to think that they they all matter. But I wonder, what if they're not the whole story? What if everything that we've been learning has been leading us somewhere? What if the Spirit who can comforts us also calls us and he sends us? So perhaps fitting, I want us to return to the text that we lean to to launch this series, which is John chapter 20. And then let's place it beside Jesus' final words in Acts chapter 1, specifically verse 8. Because I feel like when we place John next to Acts, something beautiful emerges about the Holy Spirit's heart. I want to invite you to stand briefly, shake yourselves. We've been sitting and we're comfortable, but the Holy Spirit has not come to make us just comfortable. Hear the word of the Lord. On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together with the doors locked for fear, Jesus came and stood among them and said, Peace be with you. After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord. Again, Jesus said, Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, I am sending you. And with that breath, he breathed on them and said, Receive the Holy Spirit. And before he ascended to the Father, Jesus said, now Acts next, right next to it, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. This is the word of the Lord for the people of the Lord this morning. These texts are separated, yes, by, I put them right next to each other, but they're separated, I know, by calendar days. But they belong to the same story. The story of Jesus speaking peace to fearful disciples. Jesus giving them his presence, promising his power, and then sending them as his witnesses. Peace, presence, power, witness. This is the pattern of Jesus. You'll recall that when we read this and when we read it a couple of weeks ago, the disciples were gathered behind locked doors. They weren't preaching, they weren't witnessing, they were behind locked doors. Fear had shut them in. Disappointment had shut them in. Uncertainty about what was next had shut them in. But before we're too hard on the disciples, let's just be free and be honest. We know something about locked doors. Some of us have locked doors of fear. Some of us have locked doors of grief, of comfort, of inadequacy, maybe of personal disappointment that causes us to lock the door on God. But isn't it good news that God, the risen Christ, through the risen Christ, He's not stopped by your locked doors? We've read the story. It's safe here. Why does he come in? Because he has absolutely no intention of leaving us behind the locked door. So Jesus appears to them and he says, As the Father has sent me, I'm sending you. Then he breathes on them and says, Receive the Holy Spirit. And I want us to see it here. The breathing and the sending belong together. The spirit was given so that God's mission could continue through his people. And so maybe that is the answer to our question of why. Everything the Spirit has been doing in us in these last few weeks has been preparing us for what God desires to do through us. We're filled to be sent. I want to invite you to hold on to that. Look at your neighbor, if you will, and say, we are filled to be sent. And isn't this God's way from the very beginning? In Genesis, we saw God breathe into Adam, and immediately Adam gets purpose, he gets responsibility. And then we look back at John, Jesus breathes upon his disciples, gives them purpose and commission. The breath of God has never been an end of itself, but it has always been given for participation. It's always been given for a purpose. It's always been given for mission. Everything that we have learned, I ask you to hold on to that into your holy basket in your heart from this series because it's leading right here. We were breathed into so that we might be sent out. In John, Jesus breathes, we saw a peace, presence, and purpose to fearful disciples. And in Acts, the Holy Spirit comes in power and launches those same disciples into public witness. The same spirit who comforts us is the one who fills us to send us. We saw this in John, where Jesus says, as the Father has sent me, I'm sending you. And it's fitting on Father's Day that we notice that it all begins with the Father. It's fitting to see this in the text and see the heart of a sending father. The father sends the son, the son breathes the spirit, and then the spirit sends the church because we worship a sending God. A father who loves so much that he sins. A father who does not keep his love to himself, but he moves toward brokenness. He moves toward pain, toward lostness, toward humanity. And now in Christ, he invites us to participate in our Father's mission. Before there was ever a church, there was a sending father. And the incarnation, him coming in the form of Jesus Christ, is his missionary movement. Crossing every barrier just to be near to his people. Christopher J.H. Wright, he puts it this way. But that God has a church for his mission in the world. It's a very subtle difference, but it changes absolutely everything. In fact, it's so subtle. I was thinking about this week, it just really is so subtle. It just gets in your face and it challenges you to audaciously believe God. I'll be honest with you, this sentence changed me, and it keeps changing me. I remember reading these words in seminary and realizing, uh-oh, I think God might be actually calling me into more than I have experience for. This wasn't just theology on a page that was required reading. It became a seed, a seed that God planted in me, and it simply will not leave me alone. It's this very understanding that sent me here to you. And it's followed me every single new season that I've been here with you. And can I tell you something? I have not arrived at any moment of calling, feeling qualified. When I arrived here, I did not feel like an expert. I did not have it all figured out. I was uh overflowing, but not with confidence, with ideas and curiosity and following the Lord. But I was more like Peter being asked to just step out of the boat. Knees knocking, heart racing, fully aware of my inadequacies, fully aware of what I did not know, but also increasingly convinced that the one calling me was trustworthy. And when you realize that God's mission has a church and that God's mission happened to have an Erica in mind, you stop asking, are you sure I'm enough? And you start asking, Lord, what does obedience require of me? The subtle shift, it changes absolutely everything in your life. It shifts our focus away from ourselves and our discomfort with the call. Because that's what it is. It's a discomfort with the call of God on our lives. And it reminds us that we, surprise, are not the main character. It's God. I remember calling my mom in so many stages here and saying, pray for me, I'm not this, like Moses. I can't speak. I can't. And I remember the Lord said through her, it's not about you anyway. And I thought, my pride, what do you mean it's not about me? You made me, you formed me, you care about. Yeah, yeah. But Erica, it's not about you. I just had you in mind for this. It's a subtle shift. God is the main character. And when when we think about this, we often tend to think, so let me just correct us a little bit. We often imagine that the church is the main character. And mission is just something that we do. It's one of those things. We love, we give, we do missions. But scripture tells us something different. God is the main character. God's redemptive mission is at the heart of the story, and the church has been graciously invited to participate in it. Which is why our confidence cannot rest in ourselves. It can't rest in our experiences, our expertise, our strategies, and certainly not in our credentials. God uses those things. But none of those are the source of our fruitfulness. God is. None of those things are our sufficiency. God is our sufficiency. Because at the end of the day, the mission that stands before us, it doesn't depend on are you adequate enough? It depends on his presence. We need his presence. David discovered this insufficiency of Saul's armor. I'm sorry, I've been watching the show on Prime Video, The House of David. And this, I mean, it's it's been beautiful to watch the story of David. I was taken back to the moment where he tried to put on Saul's armor and he realized this won't work. Only the presence of God could make him ready. The disciples discovered the same thing. No amount of planning, no amount of three years with Jesus was enough for them to feel confident to unlock the door. They needed his spirit. The church has never been sustained by its ingenuity. The church has always been sustained by the presence and the power of God. And the day that we come in here and think we don't need your presence and your power, we will not be fruitful. God, we need your presence and your power. This mission existed before us, and it will continue to mission be to exist long before us. God is already at work. And the question is whether we will join him. It's not just enough to be a disciple and believe on Jesus. It's to join Jesus in what he's doing in the world. If that's true, if discipleship is joining Jesus and what he's doing in the world, then let me ask another question. Why do so many of us hesitate? I think it's because the moment we hear words like witness and mission, we immediately begin taking inventory. I don't know enough. I'm not gifted enough. I'm not outgoing enough. I don't feel equipped. I I've never done anything like that. But can I tell you something? Can I tell you something? Thank you for speaking back. If you have said any variation of those statements, you sound like almost everyone God has ever called. God has a habit of calling unlikely people to unlikely assignments. Again, I think of David. Samuel arrives at Jesse's house looking for Israel's next king. The tall son comes out, the impressive son comes out, the obvious choice comes out. And God says, the Lord does not look at things that people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. Then Samuel asked this fascinating question. I love this. Okay. Are all your sons here? Are these all your sons? David isn't even in the room. No one even thought to call him. No one thought he looked like a king. No one thought he fit the assignment. He was out tending sheep, forgotten, overlooked, unconsidered. But God saw him. Because God sees differently than we do. Before David ever wore a crown, he carried a shepherd's staff. Before he stood before Goliath, he stood in fields where no one was watching. And I love this. Later, standing before Saul, David is uh kind of infiltrated into the kingdom, and he says, Yes, your servant, I've been keeping the Lord, the father's sheep, my father's sheep. When a lion came, I struck it down. When a bear came, I struck it down. In other words, God had already been forming him. The sheep mattered. The lions mattered. The bear mattered. The hidden years mattered. When I wrote this down, I had to stop here because I reconcile with hidden years of brokenness, of pain before coming to you when I felt like I lost seven years of my life. What was that all about, God? And the Lord reminded me in this moment when he told me to tell you the hidden years matter. David thought he was just tending sheep, but God knew he was forming a king. He was preparing David for an assignment that David could not see. And it made me wonder who would be here this Sunday because I wondered how many kings in this room are tending sheep right now. How many future witnesses are sitting in this room or streaming and they think they have nothing to offer? How many people have discounted themselves because someone else didn't call them into A room. David was not invited into the room, but he was never outside of the gaze of God. God saw him. And God, brothers and sisters, he sees you. Sometimes we don't see it for years, what God is doing in our lives in these seemingly ordinary and broken moments of our life. And maybe you're still carrying questions like that about your story. Why that loss? Why that season of obscurity? Why that difficult relationship? Why that neighborhood? Why this neighborhood? Why that suffering? And I don't pretend to know all of God's purposes, but I wonder, I just wonder if one of them is, God has been forming you and preparing you. And I wonder if you've been waiting to feel qualified while the Spirit has been quietly preparing you. We have a God that takes a shepherd boy and makes him a king. An unschooled group of fishermen and turns the world upside down with their lives. An outreach pastor who didn't feel like an expert. Why? Because people who know they are inadequate tend to lean more heavily upon the God who is adequate. And that's what he wants. People who know they are weak, they tend to cling more closely to the one who is strong. The church's confidence is not in its expertise, it's in the presence of God. Which is exactly why in the word today, Jesus just says, go. And he just says, receive the Holy Spirit. In Acts 1 and 8, it helps us understand what that looked like. You'll receive power. I'm saying go. I'm breathing on you because you will have the power to be my witnesses. He doesn't say you'll receive power and become impressive, you'll become successful, you'll be comfortable with the call. He says you'll receive power to become my witness. Simply bearing witness, as our worship team said. What does that look like? A simple witness says, I once was blind, now I see. You don't have to have a masters of divinity for that. I once was hopeless, now I have hope. I was broken, but Christ met me. That's witness. And this is why Peter on the day of Pentecost reached back to the prophet Joel's words and declared that in the last days I'll pour out my spirit on all people. Your sons and your daughters will see visions, will prophesy. Your young men will see visions. Old men will dream dreams. Why does this matter? Because God's mission is too big to be entrusted to just a select few. This is not a call just for pastors. This is not a call just for missionaries or experts. Sons, daughters, young, old, servant leaders, ordinary people like us. And one of the things that I want us to remember is every time we embody the love of Christ, the mercy of Christ, the justice of Christ, the welcome of Christ, we become living reminders that God has not abandoned the world. We become signs of his redemption, foretasts of his coming kingdom. And I'm struck by how Jesus gives them an address because God's mission has an address. He says, I'm sending you to Jerusalem, to Judea, to Samaria, the ends of the earth. Some are called to the ends of the earth, and we celebrate that. We heard from our missions team, we support that, we pray for that, we give to that. And yet, some of us are not called across the ocean, but some of us, all of us, are called somewhere. But Jesus starts pointing his disciples first to home, the place nearest them. The same spirit that sends people across oceans, he sends people across the street. The same people that the spirit sends to remote villages, that same spirit sends people into apartment communities. The same spirit who sends people across cultures to have difficult conversations for reconciliation. He sends them to sit right next to the unlikeliest of brothers and sisters and build relationships. He sends you across the parking lot at Summer at the Square to play Uno, to share a meal, to sit with a lonely neighbor. God's mission has an address. And it begins by us paying attention. We're going to continue having conversation about being sent ones. I want us to be intentional about God's mission. I want us to feel equipped, to be prepared. We're going to continue talking about that. The question I want to leave with us is whether it's not whether God is sending. The question is, will we pay attention? Will we refuse to allow our fear to keep us behind locked doors? Will we trust the same spirit who comforted us, who formed us, who empowered us to equip us where he's sending us? After all of these weeks, hearing what the Holy Spirit does, I think this is the final lesson. The Spirit doesn't simply come to make us feel better about being redeemed, but be he comes to make us available. And if that's true, church, it's not time for us to retreat. You cannot go back behind locked doors. You cannot climb back into that boat. You're out now. The risen Savior has spoken peace over us. He has formed us and he has equipped us and he calls us to go. Let us pray. God, I thank you for sending us ordinary people filled with your Holy Spirit so that the world foretastes of your coming kingdom. Lord, I thank you. I hear your words that say, if you go, I will go with you. If you open your mouth, I will speak for you. I pray for your holy boldness. I pray for you to walk us on that journey, step by step, to where you're leading us. Make us the church that is sent and give us the boldness to go. In Jesus' name. Amen.