Aching Visionaries

Let's open our Bibles to Philippians. And we're going to read our theme scripture. And then we're going to dig into this idea of what it means to live as citizens. So Paul says this. He's right into the church in Philippi. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead. I press on, everyone say press on.

I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. All of us, then, who are mature should take a view of such things, a view of such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that to God will make clear to you. And let us live up to what we have already attained. Join together in following my example, brothers and sisters. And just as you have us as a model, keep your eyes on those who live as we do. For as I have often told you before, and now tell you again, even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction. That God is their stomach and their glory is in their shame.

Their mind is set on earthly things, but our citizenship is in heaven and we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body. Therefore, my brothers and sisters, you whom I love and long for my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord. In this way, dear friends. Beautiful passage of Scripture and a powerful one at that. One of the things that you learn as a parent is that when you are traveling with kids or doing anything with kids, really, you have to become an expert at keeping them focused while on the journey. And you would think that as kids get older that they would grow out of this.

But even as teenagers, I remember on sabbatical, we went to we went to New Zealand, and Krystal and I were keen to do a whole bunch of hiking, and we went to Mount Cook and, you know, about halfway up a particular trail, our kids started getting hungry, and so we had to hold out in front of them a prize. Look, if you can just push through, we've got lunch on the other side. We'll buy you a hot chocolate or something. We had to keep them focused on the prize ahead, so that they would not shortcut or hijack the journey that they are on. And in a way, Paul is doing something similar here with the church. He's concerned that the church in Philippi, in the midst of all kinds of genuine pressure, hostility and opposition, living in a world that was hostile to their faith.

He was concerned that they may have lost their vision and their focus along the way. And so Paul is using his own life as an example of how to stay locked in. He says, brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. And so there's there's something else for me to, to reach out and take hold of. And so I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. Now we have to remember what we learned last week, what Paul means when he uses this word heaven. Heaven is simply God's rule and reign. Heaven is God's future reality that is now breaking into our present day reality.

And so when Paul says, I press on towards the goal to take the prize, he means he is living in the present in light of the future that is coming through Jesus death and resurrection. So the heaven would call is resurrection life. This resurrection life that you and I are called to live is why he calls us, and he calls them citizens of heaven. He's also much lifting their eyes upwards towards a heaven up there. Rather, he is lifting their eyes forward to a future that is coming and that is now available and breaking in to today, a future that they are called to live in as witnesses. Children of the light. Children of God's brand new day that is now dawning in this world.

So church, this morning, as we begin our training in how to live as citizens of Heaven, I want to take my cues from Paul with a pastoral heart, with a prophetic voice, recognizing the challenges that all of us face in following Jesus in a world like ours. I want to hold a vision up for us this morning that I believe will stir God's in a fire within us and empower us to live with a gospel impact on the world around us. And I want to start by looking at the vision that Jesus Himself carried as he started and continued his ministry. Now we know it from Luke chapter four, when Jesus gets up, but he reads from the scroll of Isaiah, he reads this The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.

He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives, to release from darkness, to release from darkness, for the prisoners to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and the day of vengeance of our God. To comfort all who mourn, to provide for those who grieve in Zion, to bestow upon them a crown of beauty instead of ashes to all of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. So Jesus actually quotes this passage from Isaiah multiple times throughout his ministry. We see it in Luke chapter four. Like I mentioned, we also see it when John the Baptist disciples come to ask Jesus if he really is the Messiah. And so Jesus quotes from this passage in Isaiah. Again it says, go and tell John what you hear and see that the blind receive sight, the lame walk, lepers cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have the good news preached to them.

He is again quoting from Isaiah 61. In Luke 21, when describing the coming judgment that is coming upon Jerusalem, he, he, he quotes this passage again, saying, for these are the days of vengeance. And then when he is preaching his beatitudes in Matthew five four, he says, blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. So this is a passage that Jesus is referring to over and over again. All that to say, we can safely conclude this morning that this is the vision that gripped the heart of our Messiah. This is the vision that gripped Jesus. Jesus came to face the brokenness of our world. He entered into our darkness so that he could shine light and bring healing and wholeness. He lived with a vision of a world where the prisoners were being set free, where the blind were being able to see again, where there was an oil of joy coming instead of mourning, a garment of praise instead of a spirit of heaviness.

And this is our vision. The vision that we are called. You and I are called to live as citizens of heaven. Having or living as heavenly citizens does not mean our goal is to escape earth, to get to heaven. Instead, we are called you and I are to be a colony of heaven, an outpost of heaven. I love how Eugene Peterson phrases that. He says, A colony of heaven in a country of death. It's kind of graphic, but but it's it's great at creating this prophetic picture of who we are called to be. Light in the darkness, planted in a broken world, manifesting kingdom, life, culture, grace and justice. Now, in order to understand this vision that Jesus carried, we have to understand a little bit of the context of what's happening in this passage in Isaiah when Jesus says on in his Beatitudes, blessed are those who mourn.

He's he's not talking about blessed are those who sat, who are sad, or although at some level he is, he is wanting to bring joy and gladness to those who are who are genuinely sad at heart. But there's something deeper happening that God wants to have us carry within the depths of our being when he's talking about morning. So when I use this word morning from here on in, don't think that where I'm at all saying that Jesus wants us all to be a bunch of sad sacks, that's not true at all. But but I do want you to hear, and I think that you will see clearly that there is something for us to grab on to as followers of Jesus this morning and understand when he says, blessed are those who mourn. In the context of Isaiah, the children of God are exiled and living in Babylon. They are citizens of Jerusalem, living in a foreign hostile world. And so, so what they are doing, they are mourning. What Isaiah is capturing is a morning that exists within them, or a lamenting of their present oppressive circumstance. They are mourning their own brokenness.

They are mourning their own rebellion from exile. But they are mourning the state of the world that they are now living in their circumstance. In other words, they are mourning the crisis both within, and they are mourning the crisis without. Does that make sense? This morning, I want us to capture a little bit of of what this could mean. Have you ever wondered why Jesus said, blessed are those who mourn? Is that something you just read past, or is it something you've actually stopped and wondered? What does that mean? Jesus, what do you mean by that? Well, let me help you answer that question this morning. Nicholas Wooster staff, who's a American philosopher and theologian, says this. The mourners are those who have caught a glimpse of God's new day, who ache with all of their being for that day's coming, and who break out into tears when confronted with its absence.

And listen to this the mourners are aching visionaries. The mourners are aching visionaries. What a statement, what a phrase, what a vision, what a calling! Citizens of heaven living as aching visionaries. A big part of what Jesus means when he says, blessed are those who mourn is. And part of what we're wanting to understand from this passage in Isaiah is that there is some kind of blessing or, you know, I love the way out. Tim McKee from The Bible Project translates that word blessing. He says it's what Jesus is. Meaning is it's the good life. It's the it's the life, the flourishing life that we are longing for. And there's something about those who know how to mourn, that live with an ache in their heart that unlocks a level of blessing in this life.

Living with an aching heart as aching visionaries. It's a big part. An uncomfortable part, but a big part of the Christian life and one that we spend in the Western church at least a lot of time trying to avoid. I think it's safe to say that Jesus, our Messiah, was an aching visionary. Listen to this verse in Luke chapter nine. As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, if you, even if you, even you had only known on this day what would bring you peace? Jesus was an aching visionary. Paul was an aching visionary. In Romans 923 says, I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart, for I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people.

I think it's safe to say that Paul was an aching visionary. In Hebrews 11 we read through the great heroes of faith and it says this about them all these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised. They only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. They were longing for a heavenly country. I think it's safe to say the great heroes of faith that we celebrate and read about in Scripture, like Jesus, like Paul, were aching visionaries.

Where are the aching visionaries? Where are those who have caught a glimpse of God's new day? Where are those who ache with all of their being for that day to come? For those who break into tears when confronted with its absence? Week one of learning how to live as heavenly citizens is that we need to learn how to live and what it means to live with a holy ache and losing our ache could be a sign that we have forgotten that we are citizens of heaven, that we do not belong to this earth, but we are called to bring another world, another realm, another reality, the rule and reign of Christ into this one.

Where are the aching visionaries? I think maybe that's what Paul sold happening in the Philippine church, and why he was encouraging them to stay focused on Jesus and focused on Jesus's vision for life. He's saying, don't be distracted by those whose minds are set on earthly things. Again, I love how Eugene Peterson paraphrases this particular passage. He says all they want is easy street. All they think of is their own appetites. Their bellies are their gods, but Easy Street is a dead end street. Paul calls these people enemies of the cross of Christ. It's kind of harsh. Notice he doesn't say enemies of Christ, enemies of the cross of Christ is a debate about what Paul means. But it may well mean that Paul considered these people to be followers of Jesus, but their gospel was not the gospel that Paul had preached.

Their gospel had become cross less, not crisis, but crosses. And who knows, you can't separate Christ from his cross. The two go together. But part of Paul's concern was that there was a cross less gospel being preached an easy street. Christianity, a gospel that didn't require those who were following Jesus to take up their own cross in following him. Our good friend Strong Coleman calls it suburban spirituality, faith that has lost its redemptive edge. And the reality is that many followers of Jesus choose easy street Christianity. And I get it. I get it because to live with an ache is hot. It's not easy to be accounted amongst the aching visionaries. Living with an ache is costly. Living with an ache is a burden across.

You might say that we have to carry. Last couple of holidays, I've taken upon myself to read some kind of classic novel. And so during sabbatical I read Steinbeck's East of Eden. Over summer I read oldest Huxley's Brave New World. Anyone read that book before? Great book, very insightful book. I'm not sure if you're familiar with the story, but let me just give you the basic idea. The basic idea behind the novel is that the government controls the population not through fear of violence, but through pleasure. And so they distribute a drug called soma, which instantly cures any kinds of feelings of sadness, anxiety or angst. It cures the ache. And so if someone starts to feel the weight of the world, they just take some soma and they slip back into shallow artificial happiness.

They slip back into pleasure. Theirs was a world where mourning was bypassed altogether. Now we may not have from our government state issued soma, but our Western culture has engineered a thousand different ways for us to bypass our morning and our brokenness. Our soma is the endless doom. Scrolling, scrolling on social media. It's binge watching Netflix to quieten our minds after a hard day. For some of us in this room, our Soma is just pure busyness, keeping our schedule so packed that we never have to stop and feel the ache of a broken world in the ache of our own broken hearts. Maybe for some of us, soma is the more common things that we might associate with addiction things like drugs or pornography.

Some of us, our soma might be our religion using endless amounts of God activity, God language so that we don't have to deal with the ache in our heart and the chaos and the brokenness of the world around us. Far too often, just like the people in Huxley's Brave New World, we choose to numb ourselves rather than feel the ache because it's just too hard. But in doing so, we forfeit the deep, restorative work that Jesus has called us to do. We lay down the redemptive vision that Jesus has called us to live and walk this earth with. We lose as the people of God, our redemptive itch. So Paul's encouragement to us this morning is to refocus our vision, to forget the distractions behind us and around us, and press on as heavenly citizens towards the goal to win the prize for which Christ has called us heavenly.

Christ's promise is for all those who are willing to live as aching visionaries. To face the brokenness, both within and without, is that they will be blessed. That this is actually the thing that we're trying to avoid, the thing that the world spends millions, if not billions of dollars trying to avoid the ache, trying to avoid and numb the pain that actually facing it is the way through and the way to discover and find the good life that you and I were created for. Blessed are those who mourn. Jesus says, blessed are those who ache, for they will be confident. They will be comforted. Now, on the surface, this idea of comfort, let's just talk about that for a moment doesn't seem weighty enough to deal with the angst and the ache of the human heart in our English understanding of this word comfort.

Comfort, sounds and feels more like a warm blanket on a cold day. That's the image that comes to mind when we hear this word comfort. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be covered with a warm blanket on a cold day. That's not at all what Jesus is saying. The biblical idea of comfort is so much more than that. When we read the word comfort in the Bible, in the biblical narrative, we are supposed to be drawn towards a person, drawn towards a presence, drawn towards our come alongside friend who in his presence brings comfort. We're talking about the comforter. We're talking about the Holy Spirit. It's not a pat on the back. It's it's not just a nice feeling or the resolution of conflict or the dulling of an ache. It's the presence of a person. It's the presence of the Holy Spirit.

Which is exactly what we need when we live our lives with an ache. We need the presence of someone who understands. We need the presence of someone who's been there, and we need the presence of someone who knows the way through and knows how to bring redemption and restoration in the middle of the ache. Have a listen to Second Corinthians. Are you guys doing okay? Second Corinthians one verse three. It says this praise be to. It's again Paul talking to the God of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all troubles, so that now if Paul ended there, the majority of us would be okay with that.

We'd be okay with the God who comforts us in all our troubles. But Paul doesn't stop there, he says, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. Now, first off, let me say this. I love that as Paul is reflecting on trouble and the need for comfort, he is offering praise to God. And here's what we learn. Biblical mourning is not in competition with Christian joy. The two work together. Blessed are those who mourn. For those who mourn shall know the father of compassion. Those who mourn shall rejoice because they discover the redemptive work of the cross and resurrection in their life. As a pastor, the temptation for me when I when I'm walking someone through or past, or pastoring or praying with someone who is an ache, passing, pastoring, someone who has brokenness, or maybe even my own brokenness, the temptation for me, and maybe it's a temptation for all of you, is to manage it.

Let me just manage this for you, and we manage it by giving them a tap on the on the back and say it's going to be okay. And and maybe those words are necessary and needed in time. I get that we we need to be discerning and we need to be understanding. We need to be empathetic, all of those things. But far too often we try to manage comfort because the idea of mourning it, entering into it, facing it seems way too hard.

But this is the gift of God's presence in our life, to walk with us in our ache because there's something God wants to do in the midst of it. Now, let me be very, very clear. There are some aches that God will come and heal. Without doubt, there are some aches that we carry that we're not designed or called to carry, and aren't part of God's plan and purpose for our life. Things done to us, wounds that we that we carry, wounds from other people, wounds from our upbringing, from our childhood aches that we carry, that God wants to bring healing and wholeness into. But there are other aches. So what I'm talking about this morning, there are other aches that God wants to reframe.

Paul. Paul said he prayed constantly that this thorn in his flesh would be removed. You heard before Paul's words and even Jesus's words that these weren't aches that were resolved. These were aches that were reframed for a redemptive purpose. Just completely lost my page. Thank you, iPad, for cooperating with me. Not. Jesus doesn't say, blessed are those who manage there. He says, blessed are those who mourn because he wants to reframe it.

There are aches for us to carry because they hold for us and for those around us. Redemptive purpose. As followers of Christ, as citizens of heaven, we are called to follow Jesus Jesus example and not just acknowledge what is wrong, but enter into it. Just like Christ came into the brokenness of your life. To. The problem with numbing pain is that you can't numb selectively. If I'm using the wrong thing to medicate and to numb the ache in my heart, all of it gets numbed.

And I no longer feel the ache. This visionary aching that Christ has called us to live with. I become desensitized or insensitive to the brokenness around me because I've numbed my own brokenness. We can't selectively numb ourselves. That's why we have to bring our ache and our pain to the comforter so he can say, I'll heal that I'm going to release you from that. But this one I'm going to reframe because I have redemptive purpose. It will no longer be something that causes deep pain in your life. It's now going to bring healing and redemption to the world around you.

As Christ followers, we don't just acknowledge the brokenness, we enter into it, which means the citizens of heaven living as Aiken aching visionaries. We have to learn to pay attention. We have to learn to pay attention to the brokenness and to the need around us. If I go to the keyboard player up. We can't afford to take spiritual soma or any kind of soma and be numb and distracted from the pain of others. Too busy to notice, too busy to step into someone's world and offer a world of encouragement. Give them a smile.

We have to live with our eyes wide open. We have to live willing to carry and hold the ache so the redemption and restoration can be ministered through us. So the God of all comfort, who comforts us, can work through us to bring comfort to the world around us. If you're casually moving through life and it's all filled with sunshine and rainbows, chances are you are not paying attention. As followers of Jesus, we aren't called to stick our head in the sand and pretend that everything is fine. We're not called to live as escapist, who ignore the current pain around us and just dream of our heavenly mansion in the streets of gold, which is completely unbiblical, by the way. Instead, Jesus calls you and I to live with a holy ache.

Are you finished with this? Well, kind of finish with this quote from Jurgen Moltmann. Now, this is theological in nature, so it's a little hard to kind of process, but I felt to leave it in because it's incredibly powerful, he says. This faith sees in the resurrection of Christ, not the eternity of heaven. In other words, not the world we go to when we die, but the future of the very earth on which his cross stands. Faith sees in him the future of the very humanity for which he died. This is why faith causes not rest, but unrest. Not patience, but impatience. It does not calm the unquiet heart, but it's itself, the unquiet heart in man. Those who hope in Christ can no longer put up with reality as it is, but begin to suffer under it to contradict it.

This makes the Christian church a constant disturbance in human society, the source of a continual new impulse towards the realization of righteousness, freedom and humanity. Here, in the light of the promised future that is to come. Wherever that happens, Christianity embraces its true nature and becomes a witness of the future of Christ. Now, I don't know about you, but that challenges me deeply.

I mean, in one way, in one very real way, Jesus comes to offer us rest. Rest from striving, rest from having to try and earn his approval or earn the approval of others. Rest from having to try and make ourselves worthy of love. No, he he releases us from that unrest. But that that same rest and release from striving creates within our hearts another unrest. That something is wrong and broken with our world. Something is wrong and broken within me.

And the Spirit of God falls upon a person. There is a holy ache that comes with his presence, a holy ache that causes us to focus in on this future, that we are all heading to us, where there is no more pain, where there is no more sickness, where there is no more suffering, where sin and death are finally being completely dealt with. To bring that world and that reality into this one. Where are the aching visionaries? There's a story about William Booth, who was the founder of the Salvation Army, and they were famous for, and still are going to the worst, the least of these, and bringing hope and restoration. William Booth himself was a firebrand of a Christian, great man of faith, a great man of prayer.

And and one day he received a letter from two ladies who were just being, I think it was New York or a city like that. And they were frustrated. They had been working tirelessly to try and bring revival, to try and see a move of God and see God impacting their city and their community. And they were nothing was happening. So they write to William Booth, explain the situation. They're about to quit. Maybe just like the church in Philippians, they were living in a hostile world. Their faith was being challenged, and they weren't seeing any kind of reward or fruit or breakthrough. So William Booth gets this letter from these two ladies that were doing their best to serve Jesus, to serve their city, and he just simply writes back with two words try tears.

Try aching. Try living as an aching visionary. Where are the aching visionaries? Where are the aching visionaries? I wonder, as we bring this to a close and ask ourselves a couple of questions this morning. I wonder if there are any areas in your life that you are trying to numb. That you need to bring to the comfort of?

The any areas your life trying to mitigate? You're trying to mask, you're trying to gloss over. If I just stay busy enough that I won't have to deal with that, well, this morning is your opportunity. To bring that ache, to bring that pain to the comforter. Let's take 30s a minute, close your eyes and allow the Holy Spirit to speak to you.

Maybe a good place to start would be the evidence of anything that you're using to try and numb yourself. Follow the trail. Well, what am I trying to numb? If there's something that's come up for you this morning and maybe you can take some time to pray with our team in just a just a moment, or maybe you just need to simply pray before we move on. Lord Jesus, help me to bring this to you. And when I meant anymore, I want to bring it out into the light.

On. Allow you to bring redemption and restoration through this pain that I carry in my own life and in the world around me. Church. You and I were and are as citizens of heaven. Created and called to live with an ache because we've been hijacked by a vision of redemption and a vision of restoration, where we earn for the reality of heaven to break out into the world around us. Jesus resurrection was not for us to live a cozy comfort life. It was God's furious no to suffering, death, sickness, and injustice.

We ache because we live with a prophetic hope that God will one day bring an end to all of this brokenness. And we live with an ache, because this one day started when Jesus rose from the dead 2000 years ago. Do you know what happens when we medicate the ache and we bypass the morning when the church refuses to carry and hold and to live with this ache, we become sideline critics. That's all we can be be. It's the gift that we offer to the world. And anybody can be a critic of the brokenness.

Anybody can criticize what's wrong point out, or the flaws, the hidden agendas, the corruption. Only the Church of Jesus Christ carries the redemptive solution. And for that to happen, we have to be willing to live with an ache. Why don't we stand to our feet? We got two minutes left for you