As I write this, we are into our second month of "Shelter at Home". All of my pastoral clients and friends are holding services "virtually" and the questions each one is asking is "What's next?" and "When is next?". Frankly, even before the virus outbreak much of the church was in a weakened state and looking for powerful divine intervention. Because of all of that, what we are all wanting to know is, when will God restore His church, bring it back to what He intends it to be--people meeting for fellowship, worship, learning, mutual support, the impartation of vision; believers growing and being sent out to make a difference in the world.
Jesus' disciples had the same kinds of questions. Believing that Christ, the Messiah, was the restorer of the fortunes of Israel, they had been waiting for 3 long years for Him to make it happen--to free them from the control of Rome.
In Acts 1:6-11 we read
'So when the apostles were with Jesus, they kept asking him, “Lord, has the time come for you to free Israel and restore our kingdom?” He replied, “The Father alone has the authority to set those dates and times, and they are not for you to know. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
After saying this, he was taken up into a cloud while they were watching, and they could no longer see him. As they strained to see him rising into heaven, two white-robed men suddenly stood among them. “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why are you standing here staring into heaven? Jesus has been taken from you into heaven, but someday he will return from heaven in the same way you saw him go!”'
What can we learn from Jesus' response to his disciples?
- God restores forward not backward.
When God the Creator created time He made it to flow in just one direction. Time marches forward, not backward. So it is with God's purposes for us. He always come to us from our future, not from our past. We are moving, always, forward into the new thing that God has for us, not backward to what was.
Paul said, "Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus." God had a future in mind when He saved Paul--and He does as well for you and for your church or organization. He wants to restore you to that future. - The “new” may not look like the old—even if the old was not bad.
There is an interesting change in this passage. The disciples ask: "When will you restore our kingdom?" Jesus replies by telling them how to build the Kingdom of God--His Kingdom.
Often when God is restoring things, it is a restoration from our kingdom to His. He wants to use the time of change, even turmoil, to prune the good branches so they will bear more fruit.
Times of crisis both call for and facilitate change. It is not just politicians who should "not let any crisis go to waste". We should be seeking to discover what change and growth God wants to use this crisis to bring about. - This kind of restoration brings us back to our vision, mission, calling and values.
In the passage, the disciples were looking for political change, Jesus was pointing them to mission and calling. During this time of challenge, so many churches, and their leaders, are being pressed back to the question, "What did God put us here for? What are we supposed to be doing?"
God has His ways of restoring us back to our original mission and calling but often by a new and more effective means. - Here is the Great Promise—we are not in this alone.
In Matthew 28—Jesus made this wonderful promise that is so poignant in the midst of hard times: "I am with you always, to the end of the age." We are not in this alone! He WILL restore. He WILL bring about His purposes--through each of us, if we let Him and cooperate what what He is doing.
Let the restoration begin--in His way and in His time.
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