7th Sunday of Easter

Readings: Acts 16v16-34; Psalm 97; Revelation 22v12-14&16-17&20-end; John 174v20-end.

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the thoughts and meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer.

A Word: In the Book of Acts, we hear that Paul prays for a slave girl to be rescued from her gift of premonition, foresight and divination. But when she was delivered from her misused gift, her owners were so irritated, annoyed and angered that they detained Paul and Silas and hauled them before the magistrates with false allegations. As the slave owners’ false allegations were supported by the crowd, the magistrates ordered that Paul and Silas be beaten and jailed securely. However, God had a plan to bring something good out of this unpleasant, scary and painful event. For an earthquake shook the ground so vigorously that all of the prisoners’ chains fell out of the walls and the doors of the prison opened wide. The jailor was woken up by the commotion and was about to kill himself because he assumed his prisoners had escaped. But, Paul stopped him by letting him know that the prisoners were all still there. The jailor found this so unexpected and extraordinary that he asked Paul and Silas how he could be saved and they explained that he was to believe in the Lord Jesus. The jailor must have been convinced by this because he took Paul and Silas home and after he and his whole household heard the word of the Lord, they were all baptised. An amazing account of God at work in the world, an account that I believe shows us that even in difficult times that God is able to transform even the worst of things into his mission. But what is God’s mission?

The psalm tells us that the Lord is a righteous and just king, a glorious and powerful presence, the one who should be worshipped by the whole of creation. For the Lord our God reigns high over all the earth, taking care of his faithful people, a people called to worship God with songs of rejoicing and prayers of thankfulness. When I consider God’s mission and what we learn about in scripture, I believe that this psalm tells us that God’s mission is a call to look beyond ourselves to the God who made the whole of creation. To look to the God who is calling us back to himself through worship in our lifetime and to live with him forever after we die.

This is a mission that I believe Jesus handed over to his disciples. For in the gospel of John we hear Jesus’ prayer for all who are his followers. As we hear, Jesus prays that we will all be joined together as one. Jesus also prays that the world may believe that he was sent to us by the father who loves us all. Finally, Jesus prays that we will see him in his place of glory. Because of this prayer, I believe the mission of the church is to proclaim that the God who loves us wants us to go and tell others that Jesus calls us to come to him and be saved.

Finally, in the Book of the Revelation, John tells us that he met with the risen and ascended Lord Jesus in a vision. In this vision Jesus says that he is going to return to judge us and give the right to eat the fruit of the tree of life to everyone who wants it. Jesus also tells John to tell others to come and to share this call with others. From this vision, I believe that as Jesus followers, the Church; our mission is being called to tell whoever we can that Jesus wants all of us to come to him to be saved. For once we have done this – it is then up to them.

One glorious mission, God’s hope for the world, shared with his body, the Church. The mission to save the whole of creation.

Let us Pray: O God the King of glory, the one eternal God and father of Jesus send your holy spirit upon us. Strengthen and confirm us in your mission to preach the good news of Jesus. Help us to live the good news we proclaim. Lift us to the place where Jesus has gone. Amen

Thanks for joining us today.