The planned (apparent) failure of the Church

Sermon for the Sunday after Ascension

1 Peter 4:7-11  +  John 15:26-16:4

What expectations do you have for the Church, or for your own future as a member of the Church? On Thursday, we heard the apostles’ expectation, or at least what they hoped the future would look like: Lord, are You at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel? They expected glory, one victory after another for the Church of Christ, now that Christ was risen from the dead. They looked for Jesus to make everything right, for truth to prevail, for light to shatter darkness, for the good guys to win.

Basking in the glory of Christ’s resurrection, they seem to have forgotten Christ’s words on Maundy Thursday. He told them in no uncertain terms what the future of the Church would look like, what their own future held. It wasn’t glory. It wasn’t victory. It was widespread rejection and being killed. It was “failure,” as most people would measure failure. And yet, clearly the “failure” of the Church was planned by God all along. The testimony about Christ had to go out, had to be rejected and persecuted, had to “fail.” And yet, through this apparent failure, those who testified and appeared to fail would actually be victorious, and the Church would be built, even as it was battered and beaten down. This image, this picture of a failed Christian Church is constantly held before our eyes in Holy Scripture, so that we may know, it’s only an apparent failure, and it’s all part of God’s inscrutable, incomprehensible plan.

For the fourth time since Easter, we return to the Upper Room on Maundy Thursday evening, where Jesus is giving His disciples some much-needed instructions before His death, resurrection, ascension, and beyond. As we’ve seen for several weeks now, everything, the whole future of the world and of the Church, hinges on the coming of the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth.

He “proceeds from the Father,” Jesus says, and from the Father to Christ, and from Christ He is given to the Church. He will testify about me, Jesus says. And who better to testify than one of the holy Three Persons, an eyewitness to everything the Father wills and thinks, to everything the Son is and does? As Paul says to the Corinthians, For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God.

He will testify about Jesus in several ways. First, He would testify about Jesus internally, in the apostles themselves, so that they would understand Christ’s whole doctrine rightly and be equipped to preach Him correctly and record His words and teachings accurately. This is what gives us confidence in the New Testament Scriptures, just as we have confidence in the Old Testament Scriptures. The Scriptures are the infallible testimony of the Spirit of truth, the only infallible witness the world will ever have, save for Christ Himself when He walked the earth.

Second, the Spirit would testify about Jesus externally, to the world, through the visible manifestations of the Spirit’s gifts. The miracles of Pentecost were divine, supernatural testimonies, certifying and confirming the apostles’ testimony about Jesus. The manifest gifts of the Spirit accompanied the apostles and their preaching throughout their lifetimes, from speaking in tongues, to prophecies about the future, to casting out demons, to miraculous healings. Those miracles were external signs that the apostles were telling the truth about Jesus, the Spirit of God testifying to the world that all men should listen to these apostles of Christ, that they should repent and believe in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins.

Third, since the preaching of the apostles carried the Holy Spirit to the hearers, who made their preaching powerful and effective, the Spirit would testify about Jesus in that way also. He would work through the preaching of the Law to convict sinners, to bring people to see their sins and mourn and fear, as sinners ought to fear before the holy and righteous God. Then He would work through the Gospel, through the Means of Grace to create, strengthen, and preserve faith.

Finally, the Spirit would also testify about Jesus internally, within each believer. As Paul writes to the Romans, The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.

But the Spirit would not be off doing all this testifying on His own somewhere. He would do it through the testimony of the apostles. Jesus says, You also will testify, because you have been with me from the beginning. The eleven apostles were the eyewitnesses of everything Jesus said and did during His ministry on earth, eyewitnesses of His teaching, eyewitnesses of His character, eyewitnesses of His miracles. So they would be called on by God to testify before the world, much as the prophet Isaiah was called on by God to testify to Old Testament Israel.

But do you remember what Isaiah’s message was to be? The Lord told him, “Go, and tell this people: ‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand; Keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’ “Make the heart of this people dull, And their ears heavy, And shut their eyes; Lest they see with their eyes, And hear with their ears, And understand with their heart, And return and be healed.” Then I said, “Lord, how long?” And He answered: “Until the cities are laid waste and without inhabitant, The houses are without a man, The land is utterly desolate, The LORD has removed men far away, And the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land. But, God called Isaiah to preach! Isaiah would preach the truth of God, with the power of God! And yet his testimony would, in human terms, be a failure.

So, too, the testimony of the apostles. Jesus tells them, They will put you out of the synagogues. Yes, the time is coming, when whoever kills you will think he is doing God a service. And these things they will do to you, because they have not known the Father, nor me. But, they would have the Spirit of God working in them and with them! They would use all the right words, do all the right things, and still, they would be hated, excommunicated, and killed! And the ones responsible for it would pat themselves on the back and pretend to be doing it all in God’s name, for the good of the society, for the good of the church.

Learn a lesson from this! We like to think that the truth will always prevail in this world. If we just use the right words, if we just lay out the facts clearly enough, if we’re just filled with enough of God’s Spirit, if we just use the right method, or the right music, or the right instruments, or the right tone, then the world will be convinced, then Christ will be welcomed by the world with open arms, then the Church will grow and flourish, and any who stand in the way of Christ and His Church will perish. But that is not what Jesus says. You can use all the right words, give Spirit-filled, eyewitness testimony, offer miraculous proofs from the Spirit of God Himself—and men will still ignore you, or reject you, or worse. After the time of the apostles, some Christians would be marginalized, others would be handed over and put to death. What happened to the apostles by the hand of the Jews and the Roman empire would happen here and there throughout history, until the Roman Church would take over for the Jews and persecute Christians, and the governments of the world would take over for the Roman empire. Even now, apostate and heretical churches persecute true Christians, and the governments of the world are still the Church’s enemies.

Sometimes Christians think this is strange or wrong. They think this or that government is going to come around and save them, is going to be the friend of Christians. They think this or that church body is immune to the haughtiness and pride that has overtaken so many other churches. But that’s simply not the way it is. It’s not at all what Jesus foretold.

But for that very reason, we should have expected this all along. We should have never expected outward success for the Church, or even to be tolerated by the world. Jesus said, I have told you these things so that you may not stumble…I have told you these things, that when the time comes, you may remember that I told you of them.

So, what? Is there no hope for the Church and her testimony about Christ? Of course there’s hope! That’s the point! Jesus told His Church all this ahead of time. Her apparent failure is part of His plan. You may see the Church persecuted and failing. You may be counted worthy to suffer for Christ yourself, even to the point of death. But this is how the Gospel prevails in the end. Isaiah’s ministry was an apparent failure, a planned failure. But through him, the Lord preserved a small remnant of believers in Israel, as He had promised to do. The apostles were almost all tortured and put to death for their testimony. But through them and through the many persecutions of the Church, the Lord saw to it that His Word remained and grew right there in the midst of defeat.

This is the picture of the Church in every age, a battered and beaten, barely surviving Church, with only brief periods of respite and peace. It’s the picture of the Church that’s given throughout the book of Revelation, where, for most of the New Testament period, it looks like the Gospel is failing, but in the end, Jesus wins, and the Church wins, that little flock that remains faithful to Jesus, that endures hardship and the cross without despairing and without giving up.

Too many Christians refuse to accept this picture of the Church. They run around, looking for growth and success and good feelings and the world’s acceptance. And they find churches that look like that. But the true Church, according to Scripture, rarely looks like that.

So instead of shrinking back from this truth, embrace it. Embrace the well-known reaction of the world to the testimony about Christ. And continue to trust in Christ that He knows what He’s doing. Continue to trust only in the Gospel of Christ to convert those who will be converted, and to preserve the battered and beaten Church until the end.

And remember, we have not been left on our own. The Comforter has come, as promised, and though we weren’t eyewitnesses of Jesus’ words and works, we are eyewitnesses of the Spirit-inspired writings and teachings of the Apostles, and of the Spirit’s working in our own hearts, bringing us to repent of our sins and trust in Christ Jesus for forgiveness. By His working, we confessed our faith this morning in the one, holy, Christian, and apostolic Church. We are not left powerless or ignorant. The Comforter has been poured out on the Church, and He now abides with us until the end of the age.

That end of the age is closer now than ever before. The end of all things is near, Peter told us in the Epistle. Therefore, be sensible and sober so that you can pray. But above all, have fervent love among yourselves. Let that be our answer to the world’s hatred of us. Let us love one another all the more, and let us bear the Church’s apparent failure, with all the suffering it entails, both with patience and with assurance that our Father’s plan is being accomplished in us and through us. Amen.