Maturity Promotes Unity: By implication divisions are the result of immaturity

Abraham Nial

This is the second installment of my meditation about unity in the Body of Christ, something I strongly believe the Holy Spirit is determined to bring it to pass because it is Jesus’ heart’s desire and it pleases our God the Father the most.

Jesus prophesied that his followers will be united with the Trinity and with each other in ways that has never been seen before (John 17:20-21) . This will bring glory to the Father who sent His Son to be the Messiah--the Anointed King of the Jews and will result in the world recognizing Jesus as the King of kings and the Lord of lords ushering in the great harvest of souls before the end of this present age.

What is the end of the age? Jesus said “… The harvest is the end of the age,…”(Matthew 13:39). In the Parable of the Weeds Jesus is the Man who sows good seeds. The devil is the one who sows weeds. And the angels are the harvesters. The people of the kingdom are the good seeds that Jesus is interested to receive as His reward. He wont allow the weeds to be pulled out and burned until the people of the kingdom are ready to be harvested--mature and full grown.

When can it be said that the people of the kingdom have matured? How does Jesus intend to mature the people in his kingdom? The apostle Paul tells us that only a global united Church--the body of Christ-- can be called a mature Church. Indeed how immature we look to God and to the world with all our doctrinal and denominational and all other reasons that have caused so much of divisions in the Church. A natural question in the mind of those being introduced to the gospel is, “If gospel is such good news, why are Christians who claim to believe in the gospel so divided? So much so that you don’t go along and sometimes you hate each other!” We have to admit the Church is in such bad condition because of our immaturity. The Church that Jesus is waiting to receive as His reward is not the immature and divided Church. No wonder the apostle Paul was begging us to be united: “Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.” (Eph 4:3)

The important question than is how does God plan to unite the people of His kingdom--the global Body of Christ? In the same chapter of Ephesians 4, Paul reveals to us how God plans to unite the Body of Christ. “It was he [Jesus] who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” (Ephesians 4:11-13) Wow God has a glorious plan to mature us. He has made provision for us to mature us. And for that reason he gave what we call the Five-fold ministry: of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. The Church in the Book of Acts was greatly united and therefore still looks glorious; and experienced great exploit for the Kingdom because it operated not under any one particular office, but all of the five offices of ministers, without envy or competition.

Anyone in the kingdom needs the ministry of all these five ministers in order to be mature. Unless we receive ministry from all five type of ministers whom Jesus himself in his infinite wisdom has given us we cannot get matured. If someone thinks he or she does not need the ministry of all of the five to get matured, that person claims to be smarter and wiser than Jesus, which is disastrous!

If one is honest to take a study, in 2000 years of the history of the Church, Jesus gave incredible and amazing apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. We still have anointed apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastros and teachers and their ministries in our days and age. They have been given to us by Jesus. What have we done with them? Even with an average IQ anyone can say that we did picking and choosing and made idols of our favorite or to the one we were exposed early. We designed and developed ministry pattern over only one two. No doubt we have great prophetic ministries just as we have great pastoral or evangelistic or even teaching ministries. But these ministries have tried to operate on their own; and what is worse we have become fault finder of each others, not realizing that any ministry built on only one or two of the Five ministers that Jesus has given will be immature. It is the grace of God that has allowed us not to be uprooted and used us with some success even in our present conditions. Each one of us and our ministries are as immature as the one we would like to call out to be immature. And that sadly is the reason for all the divisions.

But as I said earlier, God has ignored our immaturity and not uprooted us in spite of our immaturity and helped us to grow to some extent and taste some success because He is able to create the context where each person and each ministry in the kingdom will break its man-made boundaries and seek out the ministry of all the five type of servants Jesus has given to the Church to help it get matured. God who works for good in all things is using the Internet, Youtube and other social media platforms and even pandemic, lockdown, online meetings, and all other crises affecting the churches to bring us together for unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.

God willing I will write more about the Five-fold ministry the next week. Thanks for reading. Ephesians chapter 4 is a must read for this hour.

Cancel Culture Vs the Culture of Honor

 Cancel Culture Vs the Culture of Honor

The Holy Spirit has been highlighting some pressing issues in God's heart and I felt encouraged to write about it here for your consideration.

The world is bleeding because of the "cancel culture" resulting in extreme polarisation. Even families have been divided severly over political and other sensitive issues. Friendships have been broken. We have removed people from our Facebook and Insta and we have got removed too becasue it became difficult to agree. "If you dont think like me we cannot be together. I will stop communicating with you and stop listening to you."

This is one of the potent weapon of the Devil to create chaos and hate and fracture. What is worse the Church has bought into this lies of cancelling each other. If you dont talk, act, behave like me and focus on thigns that I focus, then you must be wrong and I should avoid (cancel?) you. This strategy of the devil and our propensity to give in is directly against one of God's most important plan and purpose to unite the Church. Division is a form of war and takes away a peace. Unity is the end of that war and results in return of peace. In the context of division in the Churhc Apostle Paul said: The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. (Rom 16:17-20)

The united Chruch will be so beautiful and glorious that the world will recognize Jesus in this and will desire Him as the One sent by God ushering in the Great Harvest of some billion souls to the Kingdom. Out Triune God--the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit so love and honor each other and it manifests a measure of glory we as Church have very little understanding about. Jesus invites us to be partaker of this glory in the context of love and unity among the Trinity and the same love and extended to human family--the believers. About this God with God, God with Man, and Man with Man unity Jesus said: that they all may be one, as You, Father are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. (John 17:20-24)

God is working at this moment of history to unite the Church, the global body of Christ. He is even using our locked down conditions and inability to meet freely and helplessness to navigate the present crises as a level playing field. Cause no has the complete answer. He is making us seek out each other through zoom meetings etc beyond our congregational, denominational, doctrinal and even geographical boundaries-- with a spirit of humility. He is uniting us. This is not unity in uniformity but unity in diversity. Is that even possible?

Yes unity in diversity is possible in a culture of honor, in considering the one who is different from me not as worse than me, but as better than me. It is possible by listening to get the values that are so dear to my brother which are not yet my values.

"Culture of honor" is the antidote against the "cancel culture" which is worse than any pandemic. When the global body of Christ embraces culture of honor than the world will see and desire to be united with those that are different.

The Holy Spirit is highlighting how imporant this is for the hour we are living in. We are invited to this glorious plan of God that will become a reality. Thank you Lord Jesus.

Zechariah Lect 1: Why study Zechariah?

TABLE OF SOME POST-EXILIC EVENTS

Cyrus issued his edict allowing the Jews to return home.	538 B.C.	Ezra 1
About 50,000 Jews returned under Zerubbabel and Joshua's leadership.	536 B.C.	Ezra 2; Neh.7
Work on the temple began but then halted.	536 B.C.	Ezra 3:1-4
The Jews became occupied with rebuilding their own homes.	536-522 B.C.	Hag. 1—2
Cyrus died, and his son, Cambyses II, succeeded him and ruled Persia.	530 B.C.; 530-522 B.C.
Smerdis ruled Persia.	522-521 B.C.
Darius I, the Great (Hystaspes), rescued Persia from civil war and ruled Persia.	521-486 B.C.
Darius confirmed Cyrus' decree and encouraged the Jews to continue rebuilding the temple.	520 B.C.	Ezra 6:1-14
Haggai preached his first three sermons.	520 B.C., 6th and 7th months	Hag. 1:1, 15; 2:1
Zechariah preached his first sermon.	520 B.C., 8th month	Zech. 1:1
Haggai preached his fourth and fifth sermons.	520 B.C., 9th month	Hag. 2:10, 20
Zechariah received his eight night visions.	520 B.C., 11th month	Zech. 1:7
Joshua, the high priest, was crowned.	520 B.C., 11th month	Zech. 6:9-15
The delegation from Bethel arrived, and Zechariah preached again.	518 B.C., 9th month	Zech. 7:1
The Jews completed the temple and dedicated it.	515 B.C., 12th month	Ezra 6:15
Xerxes I (Ahasuerus) reigned over Persia.	486-464 B.C.	Esth. 2:16
Artaxerxes I reigned over Persia.	464-424 B.C.
About 5,000 Jews returned to Palestine under Ezra's leadership.	458 B.C.	Ezra 7:7
Artaxerxes I authorized Nehemiah to rebuild Jerusalem's walls.	445 B.C.	Neh. 2:1
Nehemiah led the third return to Palestine.	444 B.C.	Neh. 2:9
Malachi ministered.	ca. 432-431B.C.

 Sources: Dr. Constable's Notes on Zechariah (Pg. 3-4)

From Doctrine to Dynamic

Introduction: We studied Jesus’ last sermon in John 14-17. There He repeatedly mentioned about the Holy Spirit. Still the Holy Spirit was a doctrine and not a dynamic for the disciples. If we had asked the disciples, “Who is the Holy Spirit?,” they would have rightly answered, “He is the Comforter.” If we asked, “What does the Holy Spirit do?”, they would have answered, “The Holy Spirit convicts the world of sin and righteousness and judgment.” In fact they would have given all the right answers in a catechism. But if we asked them, “How much do you know Him in your personal experience?” they would admitted a considerable amount of ignorance. Same is the situation of most Christians in our days. We all know the Holy Spirit as a doctrine, but very few know Him personally, very few know Him as a dynamic. So, we want to consider this morning:

How the doctrine of the Holy Spirit in John’s gospel became to the disciples a dynamic in the Acts?

Remember however that as soon as we talk about the Holy Spirit not as a doctrine but a dynamic difficulty arises, people get tensed and worried. It is because we can keep the doctrine inside of a book or in some compartment of your mind. But when He becomes a dynamic we are talking about the personal experience of Him, letting Him take control over lives.

FIRST STEP:

By way of review: If what Jesus said in the most important sermon about the Holy Spirit, that the Holy Spirit is Allos Parakletos or Another Comforter, then two things follow:

First, His personality. The Holy Spirit is a person like Jesus is a person. The Holy Spirit speaks, listens, loves, feels, grieves just as Jesus does. Even many Christians make the mistake of calling the Holy Spirit “it” rather than “He.” All the cult groups such as the Jehova’s Witness, the Mormons and the Christian Science address the Holy Spirit as a “it” or an impersonal “force” rather than a personal being to be addressed “He.”

Second, His deity. Not only God (or the Father) and Jesus are Gods, the Holy Spirit is equally God like the Father and the Son. As God, we can pray to Him, request Him, talk to Him, praise Him and worship Him. Did you realize that when we were singing the song “Pavitra Aatma Aaa” or “Come, Holy Spirit” we were actually directly talking or praying to the Holy Spirit! There are many Christian songs and Hymns wherein we directly talk or pray to the Holy Spirit.

Identical in their personality, yet the Trinity have unique roles. The Holy Spirit is Another Comforter, meaning He is identical to Jesus. He is in essence just like Jesus. Yet the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit have unique roles in our lives. Consider for example, looking at a house three different persons say: “This is my house.” All three of them are right. The first person is the architect or the builder of the house. The second person is the owner who bought the house. And the third person is the tenant of the house. A similar parallel can be drawn. Looking at a Christian all Three persons of the blessed Trinity say: “He is my son / daughter.” The Father, is the architect and the Maker of that person. The Son is the One who bought that person by paying a heavy price of His own blood. The Holy Spirit is the tenant who lives and dwells in that person.

Another example: Superstar Rajesh Khanna passed away and now there is going to be division of his property between his legal wife, Dimple, his living mate and other family members. Mr Khanna prepared his will before he died and as soon as he died his will come to effect. What is God’s will for His children and how is it effected? God the Father prepared the Will. But as you know unless someone dies his will does not come into effect. For God’s will to come into effect, God the Son died. We know that Jesus had nothing valuable possession in His earthly life. He had no house or other property to leave behind. Then what did he leave for us? Twice in the passage we read (John 20:19-23), the Risen Jesus says to His disciples “Peace be with you.” The disciples are locked behind the doors for the fear of the Jews. Their lives are in danger of persecution. How could Jesus say “Peace be with you?” Was he suggesting, “Guys, don’t worry this situation is going to change. We will not have anymore threat from the Jews. We will not face any persecution in you life. Just chill!” No, Jesus knew it well how the disciples were going to face more severe persecution in the days ahead. But He was giving them peace that is beyond human circumstances and human understanding. He promised to them peace not as the world understand. He promised to them peace because they were soon going to be baptized in the Holy Spirit. They were going to have peace as a fruit of the Holy Spirit. Peace is the only thing that Jesus left for us in this world. But peace is the biggest thing we need. True peace that Jesus gives means the forgiveness of all our sins, restoration of our relationship with God and mankind, restoration of life’s meaning and purpose. In essence all what we need is peace that Jesus died to give us. The Holy Spirit is the executor of the Will for which Jesus died. Regardless of our human situation, when the Holy Spirit lives in us, we will have peace! 

Now let us examine the passage (John 20:19-23) we want to study today a little more. Look at versus 21 & 22. “Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit...” (John 20:22-23) This was the evening of the first Easter Sunday. Jesus appeared to His disciples. It says that Jesus breathed on them. The Greek word here for breathing is not the gentle, quiet, often unnoticed breathing we do. But strong, noisy and powerful breathing: “ru-akh!”  With that kind of breathing Jesus said or rather commanded his disciples “Receive the Holy Spirit.”

My question is did the disciples receive the Holy Spirit at this time? The Scriptural evidences suggest that they did not. In fact Jesus would tell them, “Wait in Jerusalem until you receive the Holy Spirit…” If we say that the disciples received the Holy Spirit at this time, then Thomas who was not present at the moment, when did he receive? And if they did not receive the Holy Spirit, why did Jesus breathe on them? And why did he say “Receive the Holy Spirit.”? What was Jesus trying to communicate to his disciples? Jesus was communicating three things about the Holy Spirit.

First, a sign. Jesus breathing the strong wind on them was for them to be a sign. The next time, after nearly two months, when he breathed from heaven, when a strong rushing might wind came, the disciples knew it was Jesus breathing on them.

Second, a connection. Jesus was telling them that the Holy Spirit is His breathe. The Holy Spirit is His wind. That is why the Holy Spirit is often described as the Spirit of Jesus. He was showing them the connection between Him and the Holy Spirit.

Third, a command. We know that with the best intentions in the world a gift can be rejected. When Jesus said “Receive” it was imperative, it was a command. Believe it or not, the Holy Spirit can be rejected. His gifts can be rejected and despised. We can shut Him out of our lives and families and churches. It is as if, “We know the Father, we know Jesus and we have the Bible to guide us now.”

SECOND STEP:

Authority and Ability: Now let us look to the first mention of the Holy Spirit in the book of Acts. In fact the last of mention of the Holy Spirit in the gospel of Luke and the first mention of Him in Acts take place at the same mountain top. There the Risen Jesus, before He was taken up to heaven, tells His disciples: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. ⁵ For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” (Acts 1:4-5). Then He goes on to say, “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.” Notice the words “wait” and “power.”

Too often we evangelicals make a rushed conclusion about our mission based on Matthew 28:18-19 “ Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” In fact this verse has been the foundation for mission in many Churches and fellowships I have known, and need a bit of examination.

The Risen Jesus has all authority in heaven and on earth. And he gave this authority to his disciples. Based on the authority of Jesus the disciples can go and make other disciples. But the same Risen Jesus said, “Wait…” Wait until you receive power. In Matthew 28 he gave them authority. But in Acts 1:8 , in spite of His authority, He wanted them to wait, until they also got power.

Exousia and Dynami—Authority and Ability: There are two Greek words that are often translated in English as power. In Matthew 28 Jesus used the word exousia, meaning authority. In Acts 1:8 Jesus used the word dynamis, meaning “ability.” It is one thing to have authority to make disciples, but it is quite another thing to have the ability to make disciples. And Jesus said, “Wait until you receive ability when the Holy Spirit comes on you.”

Let’s take an example. When a person applies for a provisional (or learning) license he gets the authority to drive on the road. But that license does not give him the ability to drive on the road. So the instructor always keeps a hand ready to pull the handbrake when this person is on the road!

Every born again believers has Jesus’ authority to make disciples. Based on Jesus’ authority we can go anywhere and talk to anyone about Jesus, because we have His authority. But do we have the ability to make them disciples? How often we leaders and preachers are guilty of sending people to go and evangelize without waiting for the ability they need! And how do we try to get ability? Programs, Conferences, Strategies, Handbooks, Manuals, Studies! Yes they have some value, but they do not give us the ability to make disciples. The Church is full of people who have the authority but do not have the ability, until unless they are baptized by the Holy Spirit.

How much of our churches are busy to get authority? “If only I had more control over people, finances and decisions!” “If only I had more authority!” When in fact what we should be talking about and aiming for is not “authority” but “ability.” And Jesus said, “You will receive power (read ability) when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses …”

We still have not answered the question, how the doctrine of the Holy Spirit in John’s gospel became for the disciples a dynamic?

The answer is in Jesus’ word “wait.” What, wait? Do nothing? That is the irony of the English language when Bible words get translated. The original word “wait” does not mean doing nothing. It is not a passive word. The word “wait” in the bible is a active, busy word! When we go to a restaurant the person we call “waiter” is not a passive person, sitting and doing nothing, but a busy person doing all that necessary for you to have a good meal.

We know that the disciples waited ten days until they receive the baptism in the Holy Spirit. But they weren’t sitting a doing nothing. They were jolly busy. For sure, Acts 1 tells us that they were getting themselves organized. They selected an apostle to take Judas’ place. They were preparing the machinery. They were studying the Bible. They had prayer meetings. They were as busy as after they had received the Holy Spirit. Only difference is that, before the Pentecost everything they achieved was within the Church. After the Pentecost, most of what they achieved was outside of the Church! As we wait to be baptized in the Holy Spirit we must learned to wait. However, instead of waiting for the Lord, we must learn waiting on the Lord! And both are not the same thing.

THIRD STEP:

The Pentecost experience. We shall talk about it next week.