“What’s Missing?”
Mark 1:9-11; Acts 19:1-7
[Imperatives in this sermon:
1. Ground our church’s message on the authorized teachings of the apostles.
2. Help people reach fullness of life in Christ as God’s royal children, self-giving servants, and Spirit-anointed agents.]
Question and Scripture
Our question is, “What’s Missing?” Why do some of us find our spiritual lives lacking? In looking for some of the answers, we will explore the following two texts:
Mark 1:9 In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10 And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens opening and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. 11 And a voice came from heaven, "You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased."
Acts 19:1-2 And it happened that while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul passed through the inland country and came to Ephesus. There he found some disciples. And he said to them, "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?" And they said, "No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit." 3-5 And he said, "Into what then were you baptized?" They said, "Into John's baptism." And Paul said, "John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is, Jesus." On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. 6-7 And when Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they began speaking in tongues and prophesying. There were about twelve men in all.
The Case of Jeff, and Melissa, Part 1, with Reference to the Case of Paul and the Incomplete Disciples
As a child, Jeff attended County Seat Baptist Church. When he was eight years old, he went to a revival. When the invitation was offered, he saw his two best friends going forward. He didn’t want to look spiritually slower than his buddies, so he went too. What Jeff remembers most about church in the following years are the youth group outings and the church league sports teams.
Melissa attended Country Village Methodist Church where she was baptized as an infant and confirmed at age 12. From her confirmation classes, she remembered that Jesus was very important because both Christmas and Easter honor him, and that a funny-looking guy named John Wesley founded the Methodist Church.
Jeff and Melissa met in a Bible class at Mammoth State University. They were not prepared for the way the class would challenge their faith. Their professor taught that few of the books of the Bible were written by the people to whom they were attributed, and that none of the miraculous things described in the Bible were really miraculous. They came out thinking that all religious teachings are myths devised by human beings to help us be better persons. Late one Saturday night, it occurred to them, “We can be good people without going to church on Sunday mornings.” So they didn’t.
Jeff and Melissa married. Eight years later, with three small children, they began to feel the need for a little religious reinforcement of their attempts to civilize their children. They went to Suburban Christian Church, where over the next twenty years they occasionally undertook responsibilities to keep the gears turning. When Jeff and Melissa reached fifty, their children were gone from home, and they dropped to the margins of the church. What was missing?
When the Apostle Paul arrived in Ephesus, he met a group of about a dozen disciples. A disciple is a person who has submitted to the discipline of a master teacher. I believe that they were incomplete disciples of Jesus, following some of Jesus’ teachings, but not knowing about fullness of life in Christ. Paul discovered that these disciples had received only a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins in preparation for receiving the Christ and that they did not know that the Holy Spirit was available to disciples of Jesus. These incomplete disciples were then re-baptized in the name of Jesus, and Paul laid hands on them that they might receive the Holy Spirit. Only then did he consider them fully Christian. What was missing in these disciples’ religious experience before they met Paul?
The same things were missing from the lives of Jeff and Melissa as from the lives of the incomplete disciples: 1. They were both missing the authorized teachings of the apostles. 2. They were both missing fullness of life in Christ. Let’s look at each point:
1.They were missing the authorized teachings of the apostles.
Perhaps you have asked what is essential for membership in the Christ’s Church. If we go to the early nineteenth century founders of my own tradition, Barton Stone, Thomas Campbell, Alexander Campbell, and Walter Scott, their answer was, “the authorized teachings of the apostles.” By that they meant the teachings of the apostles about Jesus, the teachings of the apostles about scripture, and the teachings of the apostles about life in Christ. Our founders may have valued freedom on matters that were not clear in scripture, but they would allow nothing that contradicted the clear teachings of the apostles.
Jesus commissioned his disciples to become apostles—the sent ones. He sent the apostles to make and baptize other disciples, and to teach these disciples to obey him (Matthew 28:19-20a).
Jesus promised these apostles that the Holy Spirit would enable them to teach precisely the right words to set the new community of faith on solid ground (John 14:26; 16:13-14). The Apostles Paul, Peter, and John affirm the eyewitness accuracy and inspired authority of their apostolic messages (1 Corinthians 15:1-11; Galatians 1:11-12; 2 Peter 1:16-21; 1 John 1:1-5).
Unlike Jeff’s and Melissa’s professor at Mammoth State, I do not believe that the New Testament is a humanly devised book full of superstitions, myths, and self-serving spin. Rather, I believe that the New Testament testimony was commissioned by the Lord Jesus himself, was guided by the Holy Spirit, and was recorded by the Lord’s appointed apostles and by their first generation of disciples. It was recorded in the style of the apostles, but was guided so as to convey exactly what God wanted it to say. The New Testament records the authorized apostolic teaching about Jesus and prophetically applies it to the life of the first century church. In short, in the Bible, we have access to God-inspired words as a sure foundation for our Christian faith and practice.
When Paul met the dozen or so incomplete disciples at Ephesus, very little of the New Testament had been written, and they had not yet heard solid oral teaching. Paul gave them their first opportunity, and they received the word gladly.
Almost certainly, Jeff and Melissa had been exposed to at least some true teaching in their lives, but, as children, they had not been prepared to hear it, and, as adults, they were predisposed to filter it out. What would happen if Jeff and Melissa, as adults, began really hearing solid presentations of the apostolic message?
2. They were missing fullness of life in Christ.
We will speak of three aspects of fullness of life in Christ: (a) sharing the status of the Royal Son, (b) sharing the mission of the Suffering Servant, and (c) sharing the power and destiny of the Spirit-Anointed One [I have drawn these three aspects of life in Christ from the work of British Bible scholar J. Alec Motyer, The Prophecy of Isaiah, InterVarsity Press, 1993]. We will look at each one:
(a) sharing the status of the Royal Son
In Jesus’ baptism, he hears God’s words from Psalm 2:7, “You are my Son,” thus fulfilling the prophecy of Isaiah that the Messiah would be the Royal Heir of God’s Reigning Power.
When we are baptized into Christ, we also are designated as royal heirs of God’s reigning power. We get to share Jesus’ status: John says in John 1:12, “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.”
As royal children of God, we are privileged to represent God’s nature and purposes to the world. I would dare say that the status and responsibility of an ordinary Christian is greater than that of any monarch or president or celebrity.
This awareness of royal status and responsibility was missing for the incomplete disciples and for Jeff and Melissa.
(b) sharing the mission of the Suffering Servant
In Jesus’ baptism, he hears God’s words, “my beloved, with you I am well-pleased.” These words echo Isaiah 42:1, “my chosen, in whom my soul delights…. ” The words come from a collection of four Servant Songs that foretell the gentle, redeeming, self-giving, sacrificial, atoning, but tough love of the Messiah. Jesus is not only to be the Royal Son, but also the Suffering Servant.
When we are baptized into Jesus, we too are called to be the chosen in whom God delights, the missionary servants who live by self-giving love, gently redemptive in our approach to the lost and the broken, tough and enduring on behalf of God’s will. Our mission is challenging, even daunting, but it gives significance and satisfaction to our lives that can come from no other source.
This awareness of a servant mission was missing for the incomplete disciples and for Jeff and Melissa.
(c) sharing the power and destiny of the Spirit-Anointed One
In Jesus’ baptism, he sees the heavens ripped open and the Holy Spirit descending on him like a dove. This fulfills a section of Isaiah that describes the Spirit-Anointed role of the Messiah. In the power of the Holy Spirit, the Messiah will bring about the perfect future.
The power of the Holy Spirit came upon Jesus at his baptism and directed and empowered his earthly ministry. The same power of the Holy Spirit came upon Jesus’ followers on Pentecost Sunday and directed and empowered the founding of the church. The same power of the Holy Spirit is available to us today to direct and empower our service for Jesus.
Children and servants of God live in this world with the Holy Spirit’s power over sin, evil, death, and hell. Evil forces still operate in our experience, but they cannot finally defeat the faithful; in the power of the Spirit, we will defeat them. And believers live with the destiny of being transformed into the likeness of Christ for eternity in a perfect new creation, a new heaven and a new earth.
This awareness of Spirit-anointing was missing for the incomplete disciples and for Jeff and Melissa.
Conclusions for Us
I assure you that we need not remain unaware of our status, our mission, our power, and our destiny as disciples of Jesus Christ.
We can know our status as royal children of God.
We can know our mission as loving, self-giving servants of God.
We can know our power and destiny as Spirit-anointed ones.
We can wake up to all that the New Testament promises to us.
The Case of Jeff and Melissa, Part 2
But did the story of Jeff and Melissa end happily? I like to think so. Since they are imaginary friends, we can imagine a happy ending for them.
One of Melissa’s friends invited her to a Beth Moore Bible study. Melissa recognized that she was seeing something that she had never seen before, the possibility of a real, nitty-gritty, passionate, empowered life in Christ. She wanted it for herself. She began to study, to pray, and to change.
Jeff saw Melissa’s transformation. He liked what he saw, but it didn’t seem reasonable. After all, didn’t they know that religion was just myths? Jeff had a friend who seemed reasonable and was still a committed Christian. Jeff asked some questions. The friend lent Jeff a copy of Lee Strobel’s book, The Case for Christ. It presented a point-by-point logical case that we can trust what the Bible says about Jesus. After digging into this book and some follow-up studies, Jeff finally recognized that he had been sold a bill of shoddy goods by the college professor. Jeff was now prepared to enter life in Christ.
How Does Your Story End?
That’s the ending I imagine for Jeff’s and Melissa’s story. What ending do you imagine for your own story? Is there something missing from your story? Have you really heard the authorized teaching of the apostles? Have you entered fullness of life in Christ? If not, what needs to happen? No matter where you are on your journey, Jesus is ready to walk with you on the next phase as you move toward your destiny in him. I would be honored to consider the matter of a happy ending with you.
Finally, do you have friends who are not yet living in the fullness of Christ? What might bring a happy ending for them? What might you do to help that happy ending come to be?
You are welcome to use our resources in your work for Jesus. You may use them without charge so long as you are not charging others for the use to which you put them. We ask that you give published credit to the author and to www.Christviewmin.org for any such uses and that you leave the copyright notice attached. If you find material on this site helpful, please consider supporting Christview Ministries through donations and by buying resources from our Christview Ministries Store. ©Copyright 2006 Christview Ministries.
All Rights Reserved.