29th May 2020 – Morning Reflection

We are coming to the end of our reflections. Tomorrow, though we have a reflection, we will have it in the evening because that's going to be our time of prayer also. So we will do the reflection in the evening on the eve of Pentecost. This will be the final morning meeting that we would do. As we come together, we are grateful that God gave us the health, the perseverance and the gift to really keep going continuously for these 40 days in Lent and 50 days in Easter.

What I would like to focus on this morning as we start is, the church of the time of Peter and Paul. The church was very small and the world around them was so big. So to face up to such a situation or deal with such a situation, they had to have a lot of internal depths. Otherwise they would have been easily overwhelmed by the world around them. What I saw as I reflected this morning was that we are constantly tempted. The church today is huge and worldwide and strong and so many material powers are there in the church and with people in the church. We are constantly used to living in the external realities -- like people's acceptance, love, the capacity to get things done, the power to even deal with governments.

While that is a great gift, the church has been constantly tempted through the years to dance with the world. Therefore what happens is, the external realities that we have to deal with on a daily basis become so easy to interact with that we lose the depths and the capacity to walk in the deeper places of God. That's why small issues bring us down, little temptations take us on flight and the beauty of the intensity of the early church seemed so far away from us. We get so easily caught up in the world around us. One thing we are learning as we come to the end of this is, the Holy Spirit has to take us more internal than external. Of course we have to do things externally but the internal is also needed.

Somebody pointed out to me, how much of external work we do. It's true but it's not something we do out of a need to do it. It's something you do because something is happening inside you. The moment it becomes the other way around and we pray because we have to preach, we do our spiritual exercises because we want to deal with the issues at hand outside and we want to be successful in the world so we do our prayers inside. The priority has shifted and that's the challenge we are having.

Then we lose our peace, we lose our freedom, we fall to pieces in crisis because the internal depths are not deep enough to deal with the issues outside. That's why we want to kill each other also. We want to silence people, deal with them because these depths are not deep enough. So let's pray that the Holy Spirit's baptism will take us into that place.

Here we find that beautiful explanation, Jesus explaining the final days of Peter and then the Acts of the Apostles describing the final decisions about the life of Paul. Both of them are being taken.

John 21:15

When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon son of John, do you truly love me more than these?" "Yes, Lord," he said, "You know that I love you." Jesus said, "Feed my lambs."

It looks as if Jesus is asking the wrong question. He is asking, "Do you love me more than these?" If He had asked, "Do you love me?" it would have simplified the whole thing, but He says, "Do you love me more than these?" Peter says, "You know that I love you." Actually now you understand why He appointed Peter to be the leader. It is because in his heart there was greater love, even though he failed. That's the human part of it. He didn't know, poor Peter, that you could find strength from God to deal with issues. He was not yet baptised in the Holy Spirit. Therefore he failed, but his love was there for Jesus. He says, "Is that love still there in your heart?" And Peter replies, "You know Lord, that it is there." When he replies, "You know Lord that it is there," He gives him the mission: Feed my lambs. Look after these people.

This is the heart of God, this is the nature of God. What is the heart of God? He loves. So He loves His Son Jesus. He shares His love with the Son Jesus and that love is the Holy Spirit. He shares it. The Son loves the Father and He shares His love back with the Father. Then the Father asks Jesus, "If you really love me, draw these other people also into our love." That's the mission of Jesus Christ and that's why John 3:16 says: God so loved the world that He sent His only Son. They could have loved each other in eternity, but the nature of His love is to draw others and the whole universe into Himself so that the whole universe is sharing in the love between the Father and the Son, finding these depths, flowing into the heart. He extends it to Peter and He asks Peter, "Are you caught up in our love?" Peter says, "Yes." "Then you draw other people into it. That's your mission."

Draw the others into it. That's our mission as well. Our mission in the world, our mission of going to other people, our mission of doing all the activities that we do is to draw other people into this love. Amazingly how we lose our love as well in trying to serve the Lord. The very purpose has been defeated. We want to kill each other while wanting to serve the Lord. We want to hurt each other while we serve the Lord. Why is that? Because it's disturbing us. What we have forgotten us, the ministry is an outflow of the love we have with Jesus. If we lose that and we get so caught up in the ministry, so caught up in doing work for Him, no wonder we feel that something is wrong, no wonder we feel we are collapsing and falling apart. We have lost this thing in the heart.

"If you love me," He says, "Share this love with other people." But first find this love with Him. He came looking for them. They had gone away. It's attracting me so deeply these days. When I think about it, they all went the wrong way. The disciples at Emmaus went away and Jesus accompanies them. Here again they have gone back home and Jesus comes looking for them so that He can put them back into this beautiful journey. There is that film about Peter called Quo Vadis. The persecution in Rome gets in to Peter and he is walking away, and again he meets the Risen Christ, and the Risen Christ asks him, "Where are you going, Peter?" Quo vadis. He accompanies him back into the mission.

That's what the Lord is calling us to as we open ourselves to the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Enter into His love relationship and allow it to flow through us into the lives of other people, into our world, that they too may discover this life, the secret, this beauty that God has.

John 21:16

Again Jesus said, "Simon son of John, do you truly love me?" He answered, "Yes, Lord, you know that I love you." Jesus said, "Take care of my sheep."

Can you see the formula? It's not about people in the end, it's about Jesus, it's about the intimacy with God. But in that intimacy with God, it's to do with other people. It's a beautiful thing. But if you don't have that inside then everything else falls to pieces. We are so deeply challenged. When there is too much of work that's what happens to us. We pray, but we pray to do the work and not to find this beautiful place and allow the result of that intimacy flow out from us. This lockdown is really a gift that God has given us in one way, to find that deeper place, to be forced into that moment where we find Him in that rest. Then it outflows. God will find a way always. If you have a depth He will find a way to reach it into the lives of people. You don't have to worry about that. He will open the doors, He will find a way. We have to find, do we have something to share? Do we have something to give others? That's in the intimacy with Jesus. That's where our call is.

John 21:17

The third time he said to him, "Simon son of John, do you love me?" Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, "Do you love me?"

Some bible scholars say that why He asked him three times is because he denied Jesus three times. He should have asked another question: Why did you do it? But He didn't ask that question because weakness, brokenness is accommodated in the kingdom if you have a relationship with the Master. That's the great good news. These are small, little people. Did Peter even imagine what the church would become in thousands of years? He wouldn't have known. All he needed was this relationship with the Master, that he loves Him more than anything else.

Isn't that what we lose building this massive ministries, working powerfully to try and build the kingdom of God. We lose this one thing that really matters -- the intimacy with the Master.

John 21:17 continued

He said, "Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you." Jesus said, "Feed my sheep."

Here is the formula: Find the depths of God and allow it to flow into other people. Where you are, how big you are, what you are doing really doesn't matter. It's not about us. It's about Him and about other people and the beauty of finding this depth.

An early church that was so little -- what was this church? These fishermen who had run away, that was the church. Jesus is giving them the formula that builds for eternity: Intimacy with the Lord in the heart that flows out into serving the others.

Then He explains what will happen when this formula begins to work:

John 21:18

I tell you the truth, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted...

It's amazing because he was undressed in the boat. It is said in the top of this gospel that he was undressed and John says that he dressed himself and jumped into the water.

John 21:18 continued

...but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go."

That intimacy with the Lord leads us to surrender. We trust Him, we experience His security, we surrender to His will and the surrender to the will of God opens us to be led where our human instincts will tell us, 'Don't go there. It's dangerous. Don't go there, it will harm you. Don't go there, it will rob you of your happiness.' Here is the challenge we are having. That's how the church became what it is, by men and women who found this place. Peter was told, this is where you will go as you journey into the depths -- safe enough, secured enough, loved enough, knowing the Lord deeply enough that you allow Him to take you where your human nature feels unsafe and insecure.

While here you find Christians trying to build a secure life in the world using prayer, using intercession, using spiritual exercises, but the main thing is to build something in the world. How we've lost it! We have lost this beautiful thing.

John interprets it:

John 21:19

Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God.

I was stunned by these words this morning as I waited before these words. Death and glory in the same sentence. Suffering in obedience to God glorifies God. Going through struggle in obedience to God glorifies God. I was asking myself, what does that mean in practical terms? I'm thinking, when we say yes to God and we suffer the consequences of it, with internal freedom, our suffering points people to God. They see God in that suffering. That's to glorify God. God is glorified. People recognize God. "This man can't have this peace in this situation if God was not alive, if God was not real for him." God is glorified.

When you forgive someone that cannot be forgiven, God is glorified. Who is it that can do that unless God was alive and real and doing something in their heart?

Someone who goes through pain with inner freedom and joy glorifies God, because the world will see -- how can this man, this woman deal with this unless God was within them?

That's what I found when I dealt with Athula in his last stages and I sat with him in his room and the doctors had just told him he had only a few days more. How the internal rest he was having was pointing me to God. He had met the Lord. Jesus was alive. He is real. If not, this man cannot have this peace with a death sentence. Your suffering will glorify God. It's not going and telling people, "Look, I'm suffering. See I'm doing this for God's glory. You better appreciate what I'm doing." We are lost in the world still. That's why suffering is so hard. We didn't find that place.

That's why he said at the end of your life. That's the depths of spirituality and the height of touching God, glorifying God through the challenges. These are the final words to Peter:

John 21:19 continued

Then he said to him, "Follow me!"

It's like the final word to all of us 80 days later. "Follow me!" When you follow Him, that intimacy in the depths will bring His love into the world and whatever the reaction we deal with in the world, because we are carrying it with the love relationship of the Holy Trinity itself will reveal God, will glorify God, will show God into our world.

We have got so into organized religion, so into systems in the world, so into human ways of dealing with stuff that we compromise the depths. Here we are called. Find this place like the early church found it. The pandemic is an opportunity, the shifting uncertainties of a world order is an opportunity because God is moving us through it.

I didn't take the first reading today because the first reading is a description given King Agrippa about how people fought over Paul and how he was sent to Rome. Look at the last verse:

Acts 25:21

When Paul made his appeal to be held over for the Emperor's decision, I ordered him held until I could send him to Caesar.

In the end, Peter is led by God. In the end, Paul is led by God. It looks as if Agrippa made the decision but it was God taking Paul to his destiny in Rome. When we are surrendered to God and we are being led deeply within in the little things of our inner journey, God will find a way even in this huge world with tremendous powers outside, he will find a way to take us to the mission, the destiny that He has planned. If we do that, it will glorify God and bring God into our world.

This is the beauty of this inner journey. Let's take that as the ultimate result. Why were we given this opportunity under lockdown? To find this deepest place so that the world can be changed once more by the power of Christ. It's not that we dance with the world, because the wise people say, that's the only way to really bring the church into the world. In the end we have to dance to their tunes and we become like them.

Here it is, the Lord is inviting us: Find the way of the early church, God leading through all events, surrendered men. It looks as if others are doing the things but in actual fact the Holy Spirit is leading them, and it will happen to us as well. We think it's the superior, we think it's the boss, we think it's the government, we think it's this one -- but no, God will find a way to lead us through it all and it will glorify Him in the end.