Be A Witness: Session 3

St Timothy Presbyterian Church

Sermon Text

Session 3: Power To Be a Witness

Life should be a wonderful witness to God and all God has done. In the end, that should be our testimony: that God was good and faithful, and God has done wonderful things in my life. I've had the privilege to be part of the Wednesday KSM services, I've played piano. While playing, I get to see the people singing, I see them singing fervently, and even with tears. During the Bible study portions, they are deeply engaged, many of them are near the end of their lives. I see them reflecting back through the Word, they didn't have easy lives. But through the Bible studies, they reflect back and see how God has been with them, they are witnesses to the grace and love of God that flowed in their lives.

Our life is a witness to God's power, grace and goodness. God gives us power when the Holy Spirit comes upon us, we've reflected on how faith is the key to that power. Faith gets activated best in unsettled situations, so we find true empowerment in those very unsettled situations. But what is the purpose of that power? To what end do we receive power? Is it only to get us through difficult times?

Jesus said that we would be witnesses once God's power has come upon us, it takes us back to the original purpose of God's blessings for us.

Now the Lord said to Abram, Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Genesis 12:1-3)

God's purpose for blessing Abraham was so that through him all peoples of the earth could be blessed. That is God's desire for this world, that is why God sent Jesus.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. (John 3:16)

God gives us power so that we can be witnesses of his love and the grace we've experienced, the joy we have because of God. So that others too may experience this great power, love and joy, that is the ultimate purpose of our blessing. All human beings have a tendency to become settled in the comfort of those blessings, to enjoy it for ourselves and remain there. But the Spirit pushes us out with that power to be blessings for others.

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. (Acts 1:8)

When we receive this power, we will be witnesses as a result, we will have the power to be witnesses to the ends of the earth. It's a power that pushes us outward, it's a power to live out the purposes of God he had from the very beginning.

What does it mean to be a witness? I want to reflect on that tonight. I think it's important for you to be a witness to God's power in your own life, we reflected on this the first night.

Peter was in jury duty this week, in a court case, a witness has to give testimony of what they saw and observed. That evidence is tested in cross-examination to determine whether it's credible and reliable, do you have credible and reliable testimony to what God has done in your life?

But being a witness as Jesus talked about goes beyond your own personal witness. The Spirit came upon the gathered community of believers, this is what happened when the Spirit came upon the first believers.

They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. Awe came upon everyone because many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved. (Acts 2:42-47)

When God comes upon a community of people, there is generosity, everyone's needs are taken care of. There is a spirit of gladness and goodwill, I've experienced a lot of this in this community of St. Timothy. I'm very thankful for it, people are warm, they have open hearts. People are generous, the Church is a gathered community. But it is also a scattered community, the Church began to grow in numbers. As it did, it drew attention of Jewish leaders, the Church began to be persecuted. One of the key figures of this persecution was none other than our friend Paul, as the persecution increased, the believers became scattered.

But they didn't scatter into the wind, they planted new seeds of faith wherever they went. In other words, they were scattered as empowered people, they were witnesses to all they had experienced. The persecution was very unsettling and difficult, but somehow, the Holy Spirit used the persecution to fulfill Jesus' promise of being witnesses in Judea, Samaria and the ends of the earth.

This is another great lesson for us, difficulties come at us. We do suffer from these difficulties, but the Spirit is at work to achieve good purposes. That's what the Spirit did with the persecutions, that's what the Spirit is doing in your own difficulties.

The church had to become unsettled to go out and be witnesses. The Church is a gathered church and scattered church, it is both. Without the other, the church is incomplete, what is the purpose of the gathered church, and what's the purpose of the scattered church?

The gathered church experiences the power of God in community, the scattered church is the individual witnesses to God's love wherever they go. We gather as a community so that we can be empowered by God, the early church experienced the powerful presence of the Spirit as a community. The Israelites experienced the powerful hand of God as a community – while they escaped from Egypt and when they were in the wilderness.

The most powerful experiences of God are always in community, when we gather, we experience God in profound ways. This is why we put so much into retreats, it takes enormous effort and resources to put this together. And it's a great commitment from all of you to set aside a whole weekend for this, why do we do this? We do it because we experience God in a powerful way together, we're like the Israelites in the wilderness – we've left behind our life back home to experience the power of God in community.

We are empowered by the Spirit of God when we gather, but the purpose of being empowered as a gathered community is to be scattered. Scattered as empowered people to be witnesses to what we've experienced, to share the good news. The purpose of the scattered community is for people to be blessed and receive good news for their lives, good news that the almighty God loves them and cares about them. That God can do the same things in them that God has done for you, and to bring them into the gathered community of faith where we experience so many good things.

If a church becomes only a gathered community, it becomes a settled community, we've reflected on the settled life. You settle, you die!

A settled community becomes comfortable with existing relationships, without realizing it or doing it intentionally, walls are built. It becomes a safe place for the existing in-members, newcomers or outsiders have to assimilate and conform to become a part of this community. It is not readily open to change.

A settled community is not an empowered community, it cannot become a scattered church. A scattered community without an empowered gathered community has no power, you cannot be an effective witness if you don't experience the true power of God that manifests most powerfully in community. Your zeal will wane, your experience of God will diminish on your own. You cannot be an effective witness without being part of an empowered gathered community.

(Need for empowered gathered community because difficult context for the scattered community)

We need to have an empowered gathered community, because the context for the scattered church is so difficult.

Who really believes in God nowadays? Science has destroyed much belief in the divine or supernatural. Although science is meant to understand the physical world only, many people equate all of reality with what they can see and touch and measure and quantify. Instead of God, it is up to us to create our own lives.

Many people believe in the possibility of some kind of force or presence, but they don't look to the church or traditional religions for answers. If anything, traditional religions, especially Christianity, are looked upon with suspicion, there are many good reasons for that. For too long, the institutional church used power and fear to control people, they caused a lot of harm and damage in the process.

The church we see today isn't a shining example of Jesus, they're trying to use political power to regain some of the lost standing they used to have in culture and society. They're trying to impose their views of truth onto others with power, not persuading with love, they've developed a defensive posture, an us against them mentality. Rather than an open, us for the world spirituality.

And to be honest, so many preachers just don't have anything to say to help people live through this confusing, chaotic world. There is no message of empowerment rooted in spiritual truth, and so people have tuned out church leaders.

The Bible carries a stigma. It's our main source for insight into God and God's spiritual truths, but it's seen by many people as an old and archaic collection of writings. It's also seen by many people as oppressive to freedom. Which is justified, because it has been interpreted in abusive ways by many leaders.

And so, in this context, the only way for many churches to survive has been to become a settled church. A church centered around community and fellowship. A place to enjoy and escape the troubles of everyday life.

A settled church is not an empowered church. It is a container of blessings that doesn't overflow. It retains blessings for itself, it is like a reservoir of water that doesn't flow out. It becomes more about the community than God who brought it together in the first place and is the reason it exists. Human fellowship – not God who binds people together in spiritual fellowship – becomes the focal point.

The settled church may use the religious words and motions of God, but it is not a church filled with the Spirit of God. Our church is part of the Presbyterian Church in Canada. Every year, the denomination gathers together for a General Assembly. Young Adult Representatives are nominated and sent there each year. This year, we sent Caitlin Chung to represent our presbytery. I know she had a wonderful experience meeting many people in our denomination, and seeing how things work.

The blunt truth, though, is that our denomination is dying. Not only ours, but Canadian churches in general – Presbyterian, United Church, Anglicans – are all dying. Literally dying -congregations filled with aging people slowly dying off. The problem is that Canadian churches became too settled, too comfortable. They used to be at the center of society. Every respectable Canadian attended church. But as our society changed, people stopped going to church. Our society became more diverse and multicultural. But these churches didn't change

A settled church gets used to being a certain way. It's hard for settled churches to change. We reflected on being settled and unsettled this morning. What's true for individuals is also true for communities. A settled community doesn't know how to be desperate and cry out to God in faith. That's my diagnosis of Canadian churches. They see that they are dying, but they're still not broken enough to cry out in desperation and find faith

The first generation of Koreans in Canada built churches. We enjoy the blessings of this church because of the first generation that built it. There was a dynamism in Korean churches because they were unsettled. Their whole lives were unsettled. Born during Japanese occupation, only to have their country plunged into a civil war with many deaths and much displacement. Coming of age in a poverty-stricken, war-torn country, then coming to a foreign land where they didn't speak the language. Very unsettling. But in the midst of that unsettling life, they found faith. That faith was vibrant.

The second generation that followed them also went to church. It became a big part of life for many of us because we too had very unsettled lives. It was tough being a visible minority. The church became a safe place for many of us. We found faith. That faith helped us cope with the difficulties of life. That's why many of the older members have carried our ESM.

But the church for the second generation became a settled place. It became a place to find friends, a place to escape from reality, rather than be empowered to be a scattered church. There was no teaching to give insight and a critical edge. So the church began to have no bearing on life outside the church. It became a bifurcated life: church on Sundays, life on the outside. It's become more and more where church is just a place to meet friends and to take a break from real life.

The settled church. The motto from Hi-C when thinking about the story of Abraham: you settle, you die! If the second and third generation is a settled church where we just enjoy for ourselves, it will die.

What an empowered gathered community is. The primary focus of the gathered community is to experience God in a real and powerful way.

What does that entail? Worship is at the very heart of that. We experience God's presence together in worship. This is why during COVID, when everything else shut down, we kept worship. We pulled many hairs trying to adjust to new technologies and ways just to keep the community together in worship. Everything else may go, but we will always worship God as a community.

Teaching of the Word is even more important now than ever. In a world with no God, a world that's suspicious of the church, where the Bible carries a huge stigma, how are we to be witnesses? Ironically, it is only by deeper and more critical engagement with the Word of God. I am a witness to the power of the Word. It literally changed my life. When I was lost and sort of aimless, it was critical engagement with Scripture that I began to understand myself, this world we're living in, and God. That is the testimony of people of faith.

Indeed, the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. (Hebrews 4:12)

I believe that only the Word of God has the power to change a person. This is why apart from worship, study of the Word is at the center of what we do. That's why at retreats, we spend more time in worship and reflection with the Word than on fellowship, as great as that is. It is the Word that binds us together.

Fellowship. This is a big thing. Let me reflect with you what fellowship looks like in an empowered gathered church. Fellowship is often a big factor. It's important. It's the reason many people stay or leave a church. Because we are social creatures who have a need for human connection. Because human relations are flesh and blood.

God gave us the gift of fellowship. It is a source of great blessing. Dietrich Bonhoeffer said this:

“The physical presence of other Christians is a source of incomparable joy and strength to the believer.” (Bonhoeffer, Life Together)

But the danger is that fellowship becomes a possession, not a blessing through which we experience God. The purpose of fellowship in a church is for the empowering presence of God to be experienced in that fellowship.

Bonhoeffer also said this:

“Jesus Christ stands between the lover and the others he loves.” (Bonhoeffer, Life Together)

It is the love of Christ that binds us together, not direct love of the other. If it's just my love for the other person, that love is fragile. It can sour and turn to hate when we see their sins and conflict arises.

Fellowship is not for my needs to be fulfilled, but to be the presence of Christ for another. Christ fills my heart, and I share Christ in me with others. Christ in the other fills me in my fellowship with them. When we share with one another, it is as if we are sharing with Christ.

I become more Christ-like through my life of worship and transformation by the Word. I can then become Christ for others, and others in the gathered community can be Christ for me.

The best form of Christian fellowship is intercessory prayer. Praying for one another. When you pray for one another, you are bringing God to the center. It is God who stands at the center of that relationship. Relationship rooted in prayer is a listening relationship. You understand their heart by listening. When you pray for one another, you are praying by understanding their heart. Worship, the Word and spiritual fellowship: these things empower us to be the scattered church for an unsettled world.

These things enable us to be a dynamic gathered church.

Here is the final part of being an empowered gathered church: it is never a settled church.

The most unsettling thing for any community is change. Change in people. People who are different. New people who are different change the nature of the community, and that makes people very uncomfortable. The greatest temptation for the gathered community is to resist change. The condition for new people is to blend into the existing dynamic of the community.

The movement of the Spirit created great change in the Jewish community. You have to remember that the early church did not consider themselves anything but Jewish. They were all Jews. The question was: for new believers who were not Jews, did they have to assimilate and conform as Jews, or could the community change to welcome new people as they were?

St. Paul was emphatic that gentiles did not need to become Jews like them to be welcomed into the community.

This is what he said:

“There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise.” (Galatians 3:28-29)

If you belong to Christ, you are Abraham's offspring. You don't need circumcision. Only Christ.

Circumcision was the primary marker of identity for Jews. This was a radical step. This was why Paul was attacked and persecuted so severely by fellow Jews who couldn't accept this change.

My friends, a gathered church must be an unsettled church. It cannot survive or thrive as a settled church. An empowered church is an unsettled church. We embrace being uncomfortable. We accept the awkwardness of change and newness. We rely only on the Holy Spirit and faith.

Our calling: be an empowered scattered community – that is the power to be a witness.

We are called to be an empowered scattered community. People feel very unsettled. People are so anxious and fearful. There are great forces of change rippling throughout the world: changes in technology, the economy, our climate. These changes make people feel very disempowered. Apokalypsis: revealing hearts of people. People react and lash out to this sense of disempowerment.

Many Christians feel disempowered because they feel so irrelevant. What can we do? What difference does it make? Especially when no one even wants to listen to us?

The early church was very insignificant. Paul's churches were tiny: they were small gatherings of 20 to 30 people. Meanwhile, this was the height of the Roman Empire. The powerful people jockeying for power, and great wars taking place.

The early church was not involved in any of these big events. They were not involved in the political debates. They were too busy simply being witnesses and sharing the good news. They shared good news with the losers of the empire. This is what St. Paul says:

“Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.” (1 Corinthians 1:26)

The scattered church doesn't need worldly power. We only need God's power. We simply need to be witnesses to God's love and power.

To conclude this series of lectures:

We need empowerment to live life. That power for us comes from God. To receive that power, we need to be connected to God. Faith is the key to having the presence of God in our lives – whether you feel it or not. Faith is incubated in an unsettled state. We experience the power of God most fully in community – that is the gathered church. The gathered church must be empowered by the experience of God and be sent out as the scattered church to be witnesses to the world. That is our calling.

God will lead us. I believe that. Our response is to be a faithful part of the gathered church and wait for God to come upon you.

Discussion Questions:

1. How have you experienced the power of God in the church? What are some signs of the Spirit you see in our gathered church? What are some signs you see of a settled church?

1. How have you been empowered to be part of the scattered church? What are some challenges you face with being part of the scattered church? How can the gathered church help empower you to be a witness in today's context?

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