Welcome to the Moore College Podcast, a podcast of biblically sound, thought-provoking, and
challenging talks, sermons, and seminars from Moore Theological College, delivered by more
faculty and ministry workers from Sydney, Australia and beyond.
Join us as we open the Bible together and share a life-giving, Christ-centred message.
What has happened to Jesus' mission?
We live in an age when many do not know Jesus, nor do they wish to know Him.
Indeed, according to the last census in 2021, around 40% of all Australians indicated that
they had no religion.
But after Jesus was resurrected, John reports in his gospel that Jesus appeared to his disciples
in a locked room and said to them, Peace be with you, as the Father has sent me, even
so I am sending you.
The mission of Jesus is not done yet.
Furthermore, we all have a part to play in it.
In this episode of the Moore College Podcast in a chapel service held on Friday, 16 August,
2024, Kanishka Raffel, Archbishop of the Sydney Anglican Diocese, speaks about Jesus' mission,
our mission, from John 20, 19-23.
He describes the work of Jesus' mission that has been handed down to us and outlines four
unique and universal gifts that Jesus has provided to us to help us with this work.
We hope you enjoy the episode.
Gracious God and loving Heavenly Father, we thank you for every good gift that you give
to us in the Lord Jesus Christ.
We thank you for the gift of this day and this moment to share together in this way.
In your mercy, bring your word to our hearts in the convicting power of the Holy Spirit
that we might see your Son, love him, and serve him gladly until he comes.
Amen.
In John 20 we find a series of small, short post-resurrection encounters between Jesus
and others.
The one that we are looking at this morning is sometimes called John's Great Commission
because in verse 21 Jesus says to the disciples, As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.
In Matthew's Gospel, of course, he says, Go and make disciples of all nations.
But in John's Gospel he says, As I have been sent by the Father, now I am sending you.
And sending, I need hardly say, is a mission word, missio in the Latin, to send.
Jesus is the sent one, sent to do God's work, sent with a mission, and now who's sending
his disciples to continue his work.
I'm so pleased to see you and I'm so pleased to be here because your presence here testifies
to your own conviction that the mission of Jesus is not done yet and that there is a
mission in Australia.
Praise God.
Many have prayed that God would raise up workers for the harvest field and here are some who
have been raised up.
Praise God.
You'll know from the last census that about 40% of Australians say they have no religion.
It's only a slightly bigger number than that, say, identify as Christians, though we know
that nothing like 44% of people attend a church, say, even once a month, although I think in
fact, anyway, 40% say they have no religion.
There is a mission in Australia.
25%, one quarter of Australians say they feel lonely at least once a week.
30% of Australians say they feel that they do not belong to a group of friends.
50% of 16 to 24-year-old women in Australia, 16 to 24 years old, 50% say they have experienced
mental illness.
So that Australian psychiatrists are calling on the government to launch an inquiry because
our mental health statistics are the worst in the world when arguably you could say we
live in the best place in the world at the best time in history.
But even if all of that were not true, we know that the hearts of millions of our countrymen
are indifferent or ignorant or hostile to the Lord who made them and loves them.
There's a mission in Australia.
I'm so glad you're here because Jesus came into the world to let us know that there is
a God who made us and loves us and remains in charge of the present and the future.
He knows that our hearts are divided and conflicted, that we struggle with good and evil within,
that we need a savior.
And Jesus says he's the savior that we need.
He brings forgiveness and new life and the promise of his presence with us now and life
with him forever in the future.
And all of this was put on a billboard, placarded, as Paul says to the Galatians, when Jesus
died on a cross, was laid in a tomb, and on the third day walked out of his grave.
And this little passage that we're looking at this morning takes us to the evening of
that first resurrection Sunday.
What a thrilling day that was.
What a day in eternity that was.
But on that day, the disciples are locked behind doors for fear of the religious leaders,
frightened because they'd seen Jesus put to death hanging on a cross.
They'd been with him for three years.
They'd seen amazing things.
They delighted in his teaching, but seemingly it had all come to nothing.
His enemies killed him and all his disciples deserted him, apart from the women who kept
vigil at the cross.
And now they are dejected and despairing and afraid.
And then, and then, on the evening of the first day of the week, behind locked doors,
Jesus appeared and says to them, peace.
He doesn't spend a lot of time debriefing their fear or their desertion.
He commissions them for the work he has for them to do.
Work that I trust you agree with me has been sent, has been handed down to us.
And we discover in this for, in this brief passage, four gifts for the mission, four
gifts for the workers in God's mission.
They are indispensable.
We cannot do without them.
They are unique because only Jesus can provide them.
And they are universal because they are given to all disciples.
Here they are, a blood-bought peace, a Christ-shaped pattern, the spirit of power, and the promise
of the gospel.
They all started with P. Did you notice that?
Four gifts of the risen King for disciples sent on mission.
First, a blood-bought peace.
Look at the end of verse 19.
I asked Dr. Windsor what translation you were using.
He told me you'd be reading the Greek.
I believe everything more college lecturers tell me.
But I'm going to read in English.
Verse 19, Jesus came and stood among them and said, peace be with you.
After he said this, he showed them his hands and side.
Only three nights earlier, before his arrest, Jesus had said to the disciples, do not let
your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.
Peace I leave with you.
My peace I give to you, not as the world gives.
And a little later he had said, I have told you these things so that in me you may have
peace.
In the world you will have trouble, but take heart, I have overcome the world.
And now the risen Jesus appears to his disciples in the midst of them behind a locked door
and says, peace be with you.
This was an everyday greeting, but this is not everyday peace.
This is the peace that Jesus gives that is not like the world's peace.
This is the peace that is bought by the pierced hands and side of Jesus on the cross, now
raised to life, eternal and invincible.
This is the blood-bought peace of reconciliation with God of all things in heaven and on earth
by Jesus' blood shed on the cross, as the Apostles Paul says to the Colossians.
This is the blood-bought peace that destroys the wall of hostility between people, creating
one new humanity, as Paul says to the Ephesians.
This is the peace that calms our fears in the midst of a troublesome world.
We see this peace when Peter and John are told by the Sanhedrin, the very people who
put Jesus to death, to stop preaching in his name.
And the Apostles reply, shall we obey God or you and pray for boldness to help them
preach peace.
This is the peace of Paul and Silas when they are thrown into prison in Philippi and spend
the night singing hymns of praise, so that when God bursts open the prison doors and
smashes the chains that hold them, they don't leave.
They just keep singing and bring the gospel to the jailer.
Because the peace of Jesus means that even when they are in chains, they're free.
Jesus said, peace be with you.
The second gift, a Christ-shaped pattern, verse 21.
Again, Jesus said, peace be with you.
As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.
And the key here is in the word as.
That's why you came to college, right?
To find out that it's the little words that matter.
As, in the same way that the Father sent me, I am sending you.
As the Father sent me, I am sending you in the same way.
In other words, to begin, it isn't a new mission.
It's the same mission now being carried out by Jesus through his disciples.
He is the risen King, ascended to the Father's right hand, but he is not an absent King.
We'll see how he's present in a moment.
The Father sent his Son to inaugurate the mission, and his Son, as risen head of the
Church, continues the mission on which his Father sent him through his disciples.
Jesus is in the midst of his people as we pursue the mission on which he has sent us.
You'll know that in John's Gospel especially, many times over, Jesus calls himself the sent
one and his Father the one who sends.
That is to say that Jesus identifies himself and his Father, and as we will see, the Spirit,
in terms of their mission, the Father who sends, the Son who is sent, the Spirit who
is sent by the Father and the Son, a triune God on mission.
And what is their mission?
Rescue.
The Father sends the Son to rescue a lost humanity.
Why did the Father send the Son?
Why did the Son send the Spirit for us?
Because God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.
It is a mission patterned on the mission of Jesus, so it is a mission undertaken in the
way of Jesus as well as the will of Jesus.
It is a mission in humility and self-sacrifice as Jesus' mission was in humility and self-giving.
We're not sent to win arguments but to love others.
We're not sent to conquer with the sword but to hold out the word of life.
We're not sent to build our own empires but so that Jesus may build his church as people
put their trust in him.
I'll let you in on a secret.
I know we're sitting in the Marcus Lone Lecture Theatre at Moore Theological College in the
heart of the Anglican Diocese of Sydney and the global engine of Reformed Evangelical
Scholarship and Ministry Training.
Or at least that's what the principal tells me.
But here's the secret.
Jesus gives himself as the pattern for the mission on which he has sent his disciples.
As the Father sent me, so I am sending you, he showed them his hands and his side.
And when John is given a glimpse of the heavenly throne room, he looks and behold a lamb who
was slain.
The wounds don't go away because they are the way.
The pattern of Jesus and the pattern of mission in his name is the way of weakness.
Death now.
Resurrection later.
Suffering now.
Glory later.
The cross now.
The crown later.
On my third day of ministry in a local church after I left college, the rector rang me and
said we're going to the hospital.
We walked into a room and found a young couple from church whose first child had just died
after four days of life.
That was the first time I met them.
And we wept and we hugged and we prayed.
Thankfully, the rector prayed, not me.
The last time I saw them was this January at CMS summer school in Cootoomba.
And they said to me, that was a terrible way to meet.
We always felt sorry for you.
Said it was the worst day of our lives.
But we're so glad you were there.
Because we needed someone to pray.
You will not always feel weak, although you will often feel weak.
More often than you think you will.
You will feel weak.
But even if it is not often, it will always be true that we have been sent as the father
sent the son.
In the pattern of Christ, we pursue his mission.
Thirdly, Jesus promises his disciples the gift of his powerful spirit.
Verse 22, with that he breathed on them and said, receive the Holy Spirit.
Jesus does not commission his disciples for mission and then leave them without power
to complete the mission.
That would be like Pharaoh.
But Jesus is not Pharaoh.
He gives his disciples a mission and he gives them power to complete it.
And the power he gives is his own presence by his spirit.
That is the significance of his breathing on them.
The wind in the sails of this mission will be the breath of the risen King.
Do you think this mission is going to succeed?
It is.
Do you think it will fail?
It will not.
The spirit, of course, is poured out on the disciples at Pentecost, which we read about
in Acts 2.
Here Jesus is confirming the promises he made before his death that he would send the spirit
on them.
His death has not changed that.
And he is reminding them that they will not undertake the mission without the power of
the spirit being present.
But just as the mission does not get underway until Jesus is ascended to the Father, so
the spirit is not poured out until Jesus is ascended to the Father.
In John's Gospel Jesus had told his disciples the spirit would help them to obey his commands,
would be with them forever, that he would live in his disciples, the spirit of truth
would teach them and remind them of everything he had said, that the spirit would convict
the world of sin and righteousness and judgment.
Because it is a spirit-empowered mission, it is a prayerful mission, a mission of speaking
the truth and praying out the message.
Not a human work, but a work of the spirit, not something we do, but the something the
spirit does through us.
Not a mission that relies on our strength, but a mission that relies on the power of
the spirit in spite of our weakness, even through our weakness.
Because God's work has always been done through ordinary, weak Christians who trusted the
truth that the spirit inspired the apostles to write down in scripture and the power of
the spirit to work through his word in the hearts of people.
I became a Christian reading the Gospel of John in my bedroom on my own when I was 21
years old.
I had a Christian grandmother who lived thousands of kilometres away from me my whole life.
And when I became a Christian she'd been with the Lord for five years, but he answered
her prayers after her death.
When I was 14 I had a school friend who became a Christian, he told me in the playground
that he was praying for me.
He said, I hope you don't mind.
I said, it's better than being pushed over.
So I don't mind.
Seven years later, seven years later when the Lord saved me and I went to church with
that friend, his friend said to me, Kanisca, we've been praying for you for years.
Forgive me for speaking about myself.
My point is the weak prayers of a grandmother thousands of kilometres away, the weak prayers
of a bunch of teenagers at their youth group on Friday night are full of the power of the
Holy Spirit and serve the purposes of God.
Isn't that marvelous?
So God is at work.
A blood-bought peace, a Christ-shaped pattern, the power of the Spirit and finally the promise
of the gospel, forgiveness, the last gift of the risen King to his disciples.
Verse 23, if you forgive anyone's sins, their sins are forgiven.
And if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.
I don't have to tell you that over 2000 years of church history, this verse has been the
source of groaning edifices of ecclesiastical tyranny.
But that Reformation insight of great importance, that scripture interprets scripture, it's
probably older than the Reformation, but you know, we'll take it, tells us that the way
to understand what Jesus means when he invests the disciples with the authority of forgiveness
is to read scripture and find out what they did with that authority, which we can do by
reading the book of Acts.
And when we look at Acts and the preaching of the disciples, what we see is that they
preach the gospel and offer forgiveness in the name of Jesus.
Acts 2 at Pentecost, the Spirit is poured out.
Peter says, repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of
your sins and you'll receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
In Acts 10, Peter says to Cornelius, the centurion, all the prophets testify about Jesus, that
everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.
In Acts 13, the apostle Paul says to the synagogue congregation, I want you to know my friends
that through Jesus, the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you.
They preach forgiveness in the name of Jesus and exhort people to put their trust in him,
not in them.
And Paul writes to the Corinthian church of this mission and says to some, we are the
stench of death to others, the aroma of life.
Because those who refuse the forgiveness of the gospel, for as long as they refuse it,
are bound in sin and death, unforgiven.
And Paul says, who is equal to such things?
So we pray and pray and pray that those who hear may not merely listen to our words, but
meet in our words the risen Lord who lives, who died for sin and was raised again, that
they may trust in him for forgiveness.
Blood bought peace, Christ shaped pattern, the power of the Spirit, the promise of the
gospel.
One last thing.
What is it like to be on mission with Jesus?
What is it like?
Verse 20, he showed them his hands and side.
The disciples were overjoyed when they saw that it was the Lord.
We've been sent by the one who laid down his life for us and lives again and lives forever.
So as we go, we are filled with joy.
Amen.
Thank you for listening to the More College Podcast.
Our vision as a college is to see God glorified by men and women living for and proclaiming
Jesus Christ, growing healthy churches and reaching the lost.
We invite you to attend any of our upcoming events, including this one from the Center
for Christian Living.
Our culture is obsessed with identity.
We're often told, you do you and encouraged to live according to our true and authentic
self, expressing publicly how we feel about ourselves internally.
However, the very idea of personal identity is inherently slippery.
It encompasses things like ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, religion, belief, educational
background, profession and personality, but it's not fixed.
Our identity can change through time and circumstance and even self-invention.
So how as Christians should we regard identity?
God created us as unique individuals.
How does our creatureliness affect who we are?
Furthermore, as sinners who have been redeemed and sanctified by the Lord Jesus and adopted
into the family of God, how does Christ's work change the way that we view ourselves?
How does the encouragement to find your identity in Christ actually play out in the complexities
of competing sources of identity?
Join us for our next and final event in our series on Culture Creep on Wednesday, 23rd
of October, when Rory Shiner, Senior Pastor of Providence City Church in Perth, will show
us how losing ourselves for the sake of the kingdom will help us find ourselves once and
for all.
You can find out more and register by going to the Moore College website.
That's moore.edu.au.
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The Moore College Podcast was edited and produced by me, Karen Beilharz, and the Communications
Team at Moore Theological College.
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Until next time!